Donning white coats in a lab-like atmosphere, officials at the counterfeit countermeasures center at Seoul‘s KEB Hana Bank headquarters are armed with state-of-the-art digital forensics technology that are able to detect even the most precise, fine-grained currency replications.

The number of foreign currency counterfeiters is rapidly increasing as more foreign tourists travel to Korea. 

The number of counterfeit bills, which averaged around 500 bills per year, exceeded 1,500 last year and has surpassed three times the national average in the past two years.

However, according to banking experts, the amount of counterfeit bills only accounts for roughly 5 percent of actual phony money in circulation.

KEB Hana Bank is the only financial entity in South Korea that runs an exclusive center to counter counterfeit bills, using high-performance counterfeit discriminators, similar to those equipped by central banks in various countries around the world.

The bank detected a total 630 foreign currency counterfeit bills last year, preventing the circulation of about $130,000 in fake currency. The amount accounts for 85 percent of all counterfeits collected last year.

Photographed by Park Hyun-koo

Written by Julie Jackson