Dunking Ink (1)

Kidki opened the window to spot a bright round moon in the western sky going to set in an hour or so. It was a wet month and some rains did fall. He was waiting for the time to struck five when he’d come down to go to a pub down the corner to have breakfast.

Suddenly, a small pickup truck took a wide turn into the broad road at fast speed and stopped in front of a printing house…its taillights glowing red. Two guys in its dump bed dropped four black bags of garbage in front of Lomafan Press. The white pickup sped away switching on its headlights, turned a corner and disappeared.

Midnight trucks don’t dump garbage. They pick them. It bothered him. Kidki stepped out to the road. Ten minutes early and yet he decided to take a look. He found those sacks were thick contractor bags and contents felt solid to his touch. Certainly not trash. He began to untie a bag and the cord came undone to expose some bundles. He picked a chunk in plastic wrap containing five brand-new strapped bundles of 500 bills in local currency.

Kidki realised someone could be watching him. This could be a mousetrap to trick someone catch a thief. He stepped into the shadows quickly and headed straight to the pub. Over breakfast, he thought, he left his fingerprints on the plastic. He’d rather not whisper a word.

When he came back, it was light in the sky. There was a police presence. One police officer communicated on his radio, “Right outside Lomafan Press.” Kidki passed the police to his gate and stopped to look. There were a handful of striders gathered around. He figured that the police were connecting these banknotes to the printing house. They knocked a manager out of bed to attend the scene. The bright moon almost touched the rooftops in the light blue morning sky.

His gate swung open and a girl stepped out. She was fairly shocked to come faced with him. She wore pink pants and her hair in an untidy mess. He caught a whiff of booze. He uttered, “Burglary…” She paused to look. He could sense his tenant behind the gate listening. “There’s loot outside the printing house.” He felt a door closing. The girl sighed in a manner to acknowledge him with an engaging smile. Her face lit up and she began to walk in the opposite direction. She wore a pair of jogging shoes. He could not take away his eyes from her back. The smell of booze subsided.

Kidki climbed to his room on the third floor and opened the window. He sat down to watch the police. His thoughts on the girl…she was beautiful. His tenant was having an overnight date. Only a call girl would leave with disorderly hair at an early hour.

He thought it over every detail. She wore a floral pattern blouse with pink buttons and short sleeves. Can he identify that face again? She knew he was the landlord by the way she smiled. His tenant was a cop and the smell of alcohol escaped through the corridor from his room. Could it be his girlfriend? Not likely if he was snooping behind the door.

Somewhere he read on the news, few days later, that money dumped outside the printing house were fake uncirculated bills summing up to 2.5 million Maldivian rufiya. None of the printing houses in the city could print paper money to any standards of currency grading. Fraud Squad would tell forgeries could be done in India and on a number of occasions counterfeit money traced to such neighbouring countries. This time though, this huge find left no traces, no clues and not a single suspect.

In recent times, a significant quantity of forged money had been circulating particularly in five hundred notes. A new government in place made its first priority to prevent counterfeiting by replacing the old banknotes with newly designed polymer bills.

Maldivian money was proving good. By 2012, the Maldives reached a status as a middle-income nation with a per capita income of over US$ 6300. In a controversial election in 2013, President Libra took office and presaged money. He read money in every two phrases he uttered. Acquired loans from China and Saudi Arabia. As a master planner, he ambitiously entered to fulfil a big dream by building bridges and runways with an attitude of my way or the highway. There was drama and criticism in his five-year term of despotism.

By March 2015, designs of a new series of paper money were sorted and a finalist named. In November, a nationwide campaign was launched. Public told to change all old notes. So, it came out of no surprise that someone wanted to discard the loot outside Lomafan Press.

Some of the regulations were enforced to rip off their pockets without physically putting your hands into them. Public should declare how the money got collected in a day of any amount greater than twenty-five thousand rufiya to convert or to deposit in a bank. Some old-timers who kept their monies at home in vaults and safe deposit boxes had to transfer to the banks and questions asked. Every banknote that circulated in the country entered the banks and ended in the vaults of the central reserve – the issuer and guarantor of Maldivian currency called rufiya – the highest financial institution of the country located in the waterfront opposite to the Republic Square, called a monetary authority – MMA.

In this regard, MMA oversees the complete life cycle of banknotes which involves adding new security features, issuing new banknotes, printing and minting of new banknotes and coins from time to time to ensure the banknotes in circulation are secure against forging and that only fit notes and coins are in circulation.

The first payload of new note series printed on polymer by De La Rue – the UK-based company printing Maldivian banknotes since 1947 – arrived on a DHL flight. On 26^th January 2016, the Golden Fifty was launched and introduced into circulation across the country. This new series was designed on the occasion of the Golden Jubilee of Independence marked in 2015.

31^st March 2016 was deadline. Kidki who tried to deposit thirty-six thousand rufiya faced many questions. Kidki managed to prove his home rent collection and got passed through.

Though, there happened to be a ‘White List’ that nobody saw. Those names popped in correspondences to MMA from the Economic Council. Some names belonged to well-known entrepreneurs. Some famous names never appeared. Some names they never heard of.

President planned a twenty-five-storey financial tower but he couldn’t acquire funds. However, a twenty-five-storey hospital building came to near completion by the western coast of the island capital. President Libra mandated the top five floors of this new building called Cosmo Tower to be used temporarily for the purpose of the Ministry of Finance blocking the elevator systems and entrance by the west side. He then called a military-style operation to withdraw all old banknotes from MMA and transfer to the twenty-second floor of the tower.