Vitebsk resident sentenced for selling counterfeit dollars

August 31, Vitebsk / Olga Bogacheva - BELTA /. A Vitebsk resident has been convicted of selling counterfeit dollars, the UBEEP of the Vitebsk Regional Executive Committee's Internal Affairs Department informed a BELTA correspondent. In August last year, an employee of a private trading company in the regional center received $1.5 thousand from a friend to repay a debt. Then, he transferred part of this amount to another acquaintance as his own debt. When the latter tried to exchange the money at a bank, it turned out to be counterfeit. Informed of this fact, the main figure in the case decided to use the fakes anyway and, for selfish purposes, under the pretext of repayment and lending, began to sell them through his circle of acquaintances to other people. Law enforcement officers have established four such cases. For storing and selling counterfeit money, the 33-year-old man was sentenced under Part 1 of Article 221 of the Criminal Code of Belarus to two years of imprisonment without being sent to a correctional institution of the general regime, with confiscation of property. In total, since the beginning of this year, 62 cases of selling counterfeit money have been registered in the Vitebsk region, with suspects identified in nine of them. Two people have been convicted for circulating counterfeit banknotes. -0-