We had met Ricky and Jeanette Collins from Doncaster, before Christmas they were among our first Dardeema customers and were interested in returning to Gambia to set up a small business.

They returned to the UK to sell up and return to start a sweet business.

On arriving at Banjul they went to change money and were told that their money was forged, a police man was called and they were taken to the airport bank where their baggage was searched and they were told that of their £500 sterling £350 of it, all in £10 notes was forged. It was confiscated, their passports were taken and after being told that this was an offence punishable by a jail sentence they were released on bail.

I won't go into the full saga of what went on for the next 4 weeks, but eventually they were found guilty of knowingly possessing forged money and were fined £250, which GTS had to lend them as they had no money left in Gambia.

DO you check your UK bank notes?

I suggest that if you are taking UK currency abroad, it is worth having it checked at a bank before you leave, it is certainly worth checking the serial numbers to make sure there are no duplicates and I am assured that if you look carefully most forgeries are crude and don't stand up to any sort of careful inspection.

The events ruined their plans, they lost all the money they said they had planned to use to start a business and they could have ended up in a Gambian prison, without the help of GTS. I don't know if they knew the money was forged - Sadly Ricky & Jeanette, then left the Gambia without repaying their debt to GTS and have since failed to contact us - Leaving us to draw our own conclusions about their intentions.

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