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South African Reserve Bank Act, 1989 (Act No. 90 of 1989)

34. Offences and penalties

 

 

1) Subject to the provisions of section 2 of the Prevention of Counterfeiting of Currency Act, 1965 (Act 16 of 1965), any person who-
a) forges, alters or unlawfully issues a note of the Bank or something purporting to be a note of the Bank, or any coin;
b) utters, tenders or accepts any such note or a coin which has been forged, altered or unlawfully issued, knowing it to be forged, altered or unlawfully issued;
c) without the authority of the Bank, engraves or makes upon any material whatsoever any words, figures, letters, marks, lines or devices the print whereof resembles in whole or in part any words, figures, letters, marks, lines or devices peculiar to and used in or upon any note of the Bank or any coin which is legal tender;
d) without the authority of the Bank, uses or knowingly has in his possession any material whatsoever upon which has been engraved or made any such words, figures, letters, marks, lines or devices;
e) contravenes the provisions of section 33;
f) wilfully defaces, soils or damages any note of the Bank, or writes or places any drawing thereon or attaches thereto anything in the nature of an advertisement, or wilfully defaces or damages any coin which is legal tender;
g) removes from the premises where coins are manufactured under this Act, without lawful authority or excuse, any matrix, master punch, die, collar, piercing and cutting tool, pattern or mould, or any other tool, machine, engine, instrument or thing used or employed in or in connection with the coining of coins, or any useful part of the several objects aforesaid, or any coin or bullion;
h) is found in possession of any blank or defective coin of the size, shape and metal composition of any coin of which the coining is authorized by this Act, and is unable to account satisfactorily for such possession;
i) fraudulently inserts or uses in a machine that vends merchandise or services or collects fares or tolls, anything that is intended to pass for the coin or the token of value that the machine is designed to receive in exchange for the merchandise, service, fare or toll, as the case may be;
j) sells, exchanges or otherwise disposes of any metal reproduction of any gold coin contemplated in Schedule 2, or uses the word ;Krugerrand;, ;Natura; or ;Protea;, or any derivative thereof or any combination thereof with any other word in the furtherance of the sale, exchange or disposal in any other manner of such a reproduction or of any metal article of commerce;
k) without the written approval of the Department of Finance, intentionally destroys, melts down, dissolves in any dissolvent, breaks up or damages a coin that has been issued under section 11 of the South African Mint and Coinage Act, 1964 (Act 78 of 1964), or under section 14 of this Act, or removes any such coin out of the Republic, or causes or permits it to be so removed, with the purpose of so dealing with it or causing it to be so dealt with outside the Republic; or
l) sells or disposes of any coin issued as contemplated in paragraph (k), knowing or suspecting that such coin is to be dealt with in a manner constituting an offence under paragraph (k),

shall be guilty of an offence and liable on conviction-

i) in the case of an offence referred to in paragraph (a) or (b), to imprisonment for a period not exceeding fifteen years;
ii) in the case of an offence referred to in paragraph (c) or (d), to imprisonment for a period not exceeding five years;
iii) in the case of an offence referred to in paragraph (e), to a fine not exceeding R4 000 or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding one year, or to both such fine and such imprisonment;
iv) in the case of an offence referred to in paragraph (f), to a fine not exceeding R250;
v) in the case of an offence referred to in paragraph (g), (h) or (j), to a fine not exceeding R8 000 or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding two years, or to both such fine and such imprisonment;
vi) in the case of an offence referred to in paragraph (i), to a penalty which may in law be imposed for the crime of fraud;
vii) in the case of an offence referred to in paragraph (k), to a fine not exceeding R50 000 or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding five years, or to both such fine and such imprisonment; and
viii) in the case of an offence referred to in paragraph (l), to a fine not exceeding R10 000 or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding two years, or to both such fine and such imprisonment.

 

2) For the purposes of subsection (1)-
a) bullion; means any gold, platinum, silver, nickel, gold alloys, platinum alloys, silver alloys, nickel alloys or bronze or other minting alloys in the form of ingots, bars, strips, sheets, scissel, cuttings, granules, rejected coins, blanks, filings, sweepings, dross, scrap or wire; and
b) a coin shall be regarded as defective if it has been wrongly manufactured, and would accordingly be unfit for issue as a proper coin in accordance with the standards of manufacture applied by the institution entrusted with the manufacture of coins for the purposes of this Act.