"Older people won't be able to tell"... Gang targets convenience stores with counterfeit 50,000-won notes printed on A4 paper

Made 20 counterfeit 50,000-won notes and handed them to an acquaintance
Used eight times; sentenced to two years in prison on appeal as well

A man in his 20s who made counterfeit 50,000-won notes and gave them to an acquaintance to spend was sentenced to prison in an appeals court as well.

According to Yonhap News and legal circles on October 10, the Suwon High Court's Criminal Division 2, presided over by Judge Kim Geonwoo, dismissed the appeal filed by a man in his 20s identified as A, who had been indicted and detained on charges of counterfeiting currency and passing counterfeit currency, and upheld the original sentence of two years in prison.

50,000-won note

A was put on trial on charges of making 20 counterfeit 50,000-won notes with an acquaintance, B, at his home in Gwonseon-gu, Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, from October 29 to 30, 2025. Investigators found that he committed the crime by editing the serial numbers, size and colors of genuine banknotes photographed with a mobile phone on a computer, then printing them on A4 paper.

Later, at around 8:20 p.m. on November 12 of the same year, A handed the notes to an acquaintance, C, near Yongin Rest Area, on the Gangneung-bound side, in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province. Through the following day, C and another acquaintance visited convenience stores and other locations in Gwangju and downtown Icheon, Gyeonggi Province, using the counterfeit notes to buy cigarettes and other goods and pocketing the change. They chose convenience stores where middle-aged and older employees worked, as such employees were relatively less likely to identify counterfeit bills, and used the fake currency on a total of eight occasions.

The first-trial court sentenced A to two years in prison and C to three years in prison. It sentenced B, who took part in making the counterfeit notes, to one year and six months in prison, suspended for three years, and an accomplice who used the counterfeit notes with C to one year in prison, suspended for three years.

The court said, "The defendant committed a serious crime that undermines the order of currency circulation despite having received multiple fines for offenses including fraud," adding, "In determining the sentence, we took into account, among other things, that the crude counterfeiting method made it possible to identify the fake notes with only a little care." The appeals court also explained its decision to dismiss the appeal, saying, "The first-trial court appears to have determined the sentence after comprehensively considering the relevant sentencing factors."

Meanwhile, a total of 41 counterfeit notes were found in South Korea in the first half of this year.

According to the Bank of Korea's report, "Counterfeit Banknotes Found in the First Half of 2026," released in July, a total of 41 counterfeit notes were found by the BOK during its currency-handling process or discovered by financial institutions and reported to the BOK in the first half of this year, down 21 from 62 in the same period a year earlier.

The number of counterfeit notes found in each half-year period rose to 99 in the second half of 2024, then fell to 62 in the first half of 2025 and 41 in the second half of 2025.

By denomination, the counterfeit notes found in the first half of this year comprised 22 5,000-won notes, 11 10,000-won notes, five 50,000-won notes and three 1,000-won notes. Most of the counterfeit 5,000-won notes (17) were old-series bills bearing the serial number "77246," which had been used by a prolific counterfeiter arrested in June 2013. Their number also fell from 20 a year earlier.

A BOK official said, "Most of the seized counterfeit notes are characterized by mismatched serial numbers in the upper left and lower right corners of the front," and urged the public to "report such counterfeit notes to the police immediately if you receive them."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.