Police in Dundee have recovered a flood of counterfeit cash.
Almost £8,000 of forged bills was taken out of circulation by Tayside Police over a six-week period.
Officers recovered 381 counterfeit £20 notes totalling £7,620. Of these, 242 were Royal Bank of Scotland notes, 134 Clydesdale Bank and five were Bank of England.
A further £110 in £10 notes and £175 of £5 notes were also recovered. The full value of the haul came to £7,905.
Much of the money was recovered by officers executing search warrants on properties or from suspects who were arrested. Some was handed in by shopkeepers who had unwittingly accepted it as genuine tender.
Sergeant Andy Carroll said: ”It’s a shame for shopkeepers who find counterfeit money in their till at the end of the working day.
”Times are hard and this sort of thing can be a significant loss for small business owners.”
The notes were recovered in six weeks over October and November. Eight people have been arrested in connection with it.
The forged money recovered by Tayside Police is more than was identified in Fife over two years and represents 1.1% of all the counterfeit cash detected in Scotland last year.
Between July 2010 and July this year, Fife Police identified £7,750 in counterfeit bills, according to a Freedom of Information response.
Tayside Police were unable to provide figures immediately for the total amount they have seized but said they have recorded more than 500 separate crimes relating to currency offences this year.
Last year just under 41,000 counterfeit notes with a total value of £710,792 were removed from circulation in Scotland.
Organised criminals involved in currency counterfeiting in the UK produce a variety of banknote types, including Bank of England and Scottish sterling and euro notes.
Last year, the number of counterfeit Bank of England notes taken out of circulation was around 374,000, with a face value of £6.3m. The most heavily counterfeited note was the ”Adam Smith” £20 note.
According to the Bank of England, almost all counterfeit notes are removed from circulation quickly as a result of retailers banking their takings.
Counterfeit notes are valueless. People who have a note they believe to be counterfeit, who are sure who gave them the note, should take it to the police.
Those who have no knowledge of who gave them the note are required to take it to any local branch of the bank of issue.
The bank will retain the counterfeit note for recording and destruction purposes.
The holder will only be reimbursed for the value of the note if it is subsequently found to be genuine.
It is a criminal offence for anyone to hold or to pass a note they know to be counterfeit.