31 August, Vitebsk /Olga Bogacheva - BELTA/. A Vitebsk resident has been convicted for selling counterfeit dollars, the Department for Combating Economic Crimes of the Vitebsk Regional Executive Committee's Internal Affairs Directorate informed a BELTA correspondent. In August of last year, an employee of a private trading company in the regional center received $1.5 thousand from a friend to settle a debt. He then passed part of this sum to another acquaintance as his own debt. When the latter attempted to exchange the received 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 for his own gain, under the pretext of payment and lending, and began to sell them to other people through his circle of acquaintances. Law enforcement officers have established four such instances. For storing and selling counterfeit money, the 33-year-old man has been sentenced under Part 1 of Article 221 of the Criminal Code of Belarus to two years of imprisonment without referral to a correctional institution of the "type" with confiscation of property. In total, since the beginning of this year, 62 instances 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 currency. -0-

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