Cairo – A few fat cows, pleasing to the onlookers, their insides were swollen not with food, but with counterfeit money, as livestock traders were able to hide thousands of 200 and 100 pound banknotes inside them.
This was a recent ploy by one of the counterfeiting gangs to transport counterfeit currencies from one of the Upper Egypt regions to Cairo, and its downfall was considered normal news amid successive news of the arrest of counterfeiting gangs.
These papers might have been in the same way as others, in the hands of Mahmoud Abdel Naeem, the owner of a store that sells mobile phone supplies in Cairo. He told Al Jazeera Net that he was in urgent need of a device to detect counterfeit currencies, after it had become common for agents of supplies he sold to discover counterfeit currencies among the money. Which he supplies to them, which puts him in extreme embarrassment, especially since reviewing the cameras does not help him know who handed him the counterfeit currency, and perhaps he was one of the customers who did not realize that the currency with which he bought his items was counterfeit.
A journalist specializing in accident news on a local news website reported the recent increase in news of the fall of local currency counterfeiters, and he continued in his interview with Al Jazeera Net, requesting that his identity not be revealed, that “the evidence of this indicates that this activity has become more profitable for outlaws than other activities, perhaps more than the drugs themselves.” “This also means that the activity of Public Funds Investigation agents increased with the escalation of the activities of these gangs.”
In the security interpretation, the escalation in the trend of counterfeiting currency means the development of counterfeiting methods, which tempts deviants to resort to this type of crime. However, economic analysts believe that the matter is related from another angle to a decrease in liquidity, which tempts deviants to meet the market’s thirsty demand for local currency with counterfeit currencies, with Having the necessary technical tools.
Low liquidity
The decline in liquidity, in the opinion of these analysts, has clear causes that have been increasing for several years, and are evident in the tendency of most Egyptians to pump their money into high-interest bank certificates, in an effort to absorb liquidity from the market and reduce the inflation rate, while savers prefer to freeze their savings in the form of assets; Such as: gold, real estate, or even converting them into dollars, in order to preserve the value of their money with the continuous decline in the value of the pound, which fell in the parallel market to 52 pounds to the dollar, and the inflation rate rose to the level of 39%.
Official reports estimated the number of residential units purchased during this year at more than 660,000 housing units, and real estate prices increased by 25%, with expectations that the size of the residential real estate market in Egypt will grow from $18.04 billion in 2023 to $30.34 billion by 2028, driven by increasing demand. on residential units in major cities in Egypt, according to the Cabinet Information Center.
A recent report revealed that Egyptians’ purchases of gold jumped by 46.3% during the first half of this year, to exceed 33.5 tons, compared to about 22.9 tons in the same period in 2022.
Traders’ complaints
A member of the Qalyubia Chamber of Commerce, Sayed Al-Beheiri, who is also a grain trader, complained that the market was suffering from a lack of liquidity, adding in an interview with Al Jazeera, “I used to sell, for example, in limited hours, about half a ton, but now a week may pass and I cannot sell 150 kilograms, as a result of the high prices on a daily basis, and a severe shortage of liquidity.”
Salah Shaheen, a wholesaler of sanitary ware, confirmed that the lack of liquidity resulted in the spread of the phenomenon of counterfeit currencies, especially in denominations of 100 and 200 pounds, noting in an interview with Al Jazeera Net that “the matter has become more dangerous to the point that some counterfeiting professionals are announcing their activity through social media networks, and it has spread.” Money printing machines in specific villages.
Economist Wael Al-Nahhas explained that betting on safe containers for financial surpluses, “the dollar, real estate, and gold,” contributed to the evaporation of money from the markets, which was reflected in the liquidity crisis, perpetuating the state of recession, with commodity prices continuing to rise despite the lack of demand for them, which prompted traders to burn… Prices and selling without profit margin, in fulfillment of his obligations.
In his interview with Al Jazeera Net, Wael Al-Nahhas called for a new policy that works to confront inflation and recession, while at the same time not paralyzing the movement of markets.
Numerous complaints by merchants known to the economics teacher at the Faculty of Commerce at Al-Azhar University and the economic expert, Ahmed Dhakrallah, indicate that the country has entered a “major liquidity crisis,” in his words, which in turn prompted some of them to freeze their money in goods and store them, in light of rumors that the pound will soon float. What stopped the liquidity cycle?
The economic expert believes that the Egyptian government’s efforts to confront the problem are at least two years too late, calling in an interview with Al Jazeera Net to quickly take steps to implement economic reform programs, by removing state institutions from the economy, stopping competition with the private sector, and supporting activities that save hard currency.
Demands action
On the other hand, economic expert Hani Abu Al-Futouh confirms that there is no liquidity crisis in Egypt, but the matter is nothing more than a decline in buying and selling rates, as a result of the decline in purchasing power of large sectors of Egyptians, a reflection of the economic crisis.
He continued, the recent Central Bank reports do not talk about a liquidity crisis at all, despite talk about inflation rates touching the level of 40%.
The spokesman stressed that the Central Bank is extremely vigilant to avoid suffering from a liquidity crisis by using its tools and pumping billions of pounds into the markets, explaining in an interview with Al Jazeera Net that recent consumer behavior has prompted some people to talk about the lack of liquidity.
However, Hani Abu Al-Futouh does not deny the high rates of spread of counterfeit money in the markets, to the point of the emergence of groups on social networks, one of which was seized, whose owners were announcing the delivery of 1,000 counterfeit pounds in exchange for 300 real pounds.
In his interpretation, it is not due to a lack of liquidity, but the speaker attributes it to the ease of owning printing machines naturally without restrictions, while relying on high counterfeiting techniques that are difficult to pursue by traditional means, in addition to the presence of desires to achieve financial gains and quick wealth by exploiting the economic crisis, in an easy way despite break the law.
The economic expert called for strengthening oversight of the markets to confront this phenomenon, which is considered – according to the law – a crime of public funds, and to increase the penalty, while reducing reliance on manual trading, and expanding the electronic payments system.
