Banking: Raids on RBA subsidiary in bank note bribery scandal
Red faces all around at the Reserve Bank of Australia this morning as it currency printing division is raided by police. The RBA has been debating interest rates - but this is one rate of interest it wishes it didn't have to deal with.
Acting in raids coordinated with the UK's Serious Fraud Office which has a remit to investigate large frauds and other crimes which affect the public interest, the Australian Federal Police have raided the offices of Securency International PTY Ltd, a joint venture between the Reserve Bank of Australia and Innovia Films Ltd, a UK company that produces the special polymers used for plastic bank notes printed in Australia and widely used across South East Asia.
According to the SFO in a statement yesterday, "over 80 members of the Serious Fraud Office, supported by officers of Surrey, Hampshire, Thames Valley, Cumbria and the Metropolitan police services executed search warrants at 8 residential premises and a commercial site in the UK."
But that wasn't the half of it, as Londoners say.
Two search warrants were also executed in Spain by the Spanish authorities in relation to three British nationals.
In addition six search warrants were executed on residential premises in Australia.
There are allegations, pressed by Australian media, that the JV company and its agents paid bribes to secure contracts for the supply of polymer notes.
Two men were arrested in the UK but have not been charged.
The product is in use in about 30 countries, many tropical, where polymer notes do not suffer from humidity damage in the same way as paper. But they are also used in countries where counterfeiting is rife as they are much more difficult to reproduce without the correct equipment and compounds which are difficult to source outside proper channels.
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