Forged checks widely spread – Rafidain Bank

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: The phenomenon of using forged checks has been widely spreading especially in state-run institutions and for big amounts that reach billions of Iraqi dinars, the director general of the Iraqi Rafidain Bank said on Tuesday. “Recently, there has been a phenomenon of forged checks issued by state-owned institutions and for big amounts of Iraqi dinars,” Abdulhussein al-Yasseri told IraqiNews.com news agency. “It is hard for the Bank staff to distinguish those forged checks from the real ones as advanced technologies and computers are used to produce them,” he said. “The load we have and the quality of forgery make it hard for our staff to discover the forgery,” he added. Al-Yasseri explained that he really “does not know how some people were able to obtain checks of state institutions that carry official serial numbers, names, stamps, and account numbers.” “There must be corruption in those institutions,” he noted. “Magnetic checks should be used to limit forgery,” he pointed out. He stressed that those who use forged checks also use forged IDs with unreal names, which makes the issue of finding them very hard. The state-owned Rafidain Bank was established in 1941. MH (S) / SS 1