SAO PAULO - A man was arrested late on Friday with R$ 14,800 (about $10,000) in counterfeit bills in Santa Isabel, in the São Paulo metropolitan area. According to police, David Morais Cardoso da Silva, 31, was caught red-handed at the 184 km marker on the President Dutra highway. A Highway Patrol spokesman said that the driver, who was pulled over for speeding, seemed nervous and contradicted himself when asked where he was going.
The patrol officers decided to investigate when the driver couldn’t produce the vehicle registration.
While searching the vehicle, the officers found 148 counterfeit R$ 100 banknotes of the latest design hidden in a bag of dirty laundry. During a roadside interrogation, da Silva admitted that he bought the banknotes in Sao Paulo for R$ 20 for every five notes. He planned to sell them in his hometown of Duque de Caxias in Rio de Janeiro.
Further investigation revealed that da Silva had outstanding warrants for possession of counterfeit coins. He was arrested and booked into the jail in Guarulhos. After questioning, a young woman traveling with da Silva was determined not to be complicit and was allowed to go free.
Duque de Caxias is an industrial city of almost a million people north of the City of Rio de Janeiro. Although it is the second richest city in the State of Rio de Janeiro, it still has open sewers in some residential areas. The main industries are oil and chemical refineries.
Read also: More Articles from Brazil Dispatch
Source(s) for this article: terra.com.br