We can confirm that this afternoon one of our officers was involved with the pursuit of an individual believed to have been involved in a burglary in the Devonshire area. The officer caught up to and struggled with the suspect. During the struggle, the suspect produced what appeared to be a firearm - pointing it at the officer, who then out of an abundance of caution retreated to a safe distance and summoned further assistance. We do not consider that the individual concerned represents a threat to the public. Our efforts to apprehend the suspect will continue and the investigation is being conducted from the Major Incident Room.

Advisory – Individual Claiming to be a Police Officer

The Bermuda Police Service is warning all businesses that a man claiming to be a Police detective attended several commercial premises today and attempted to gain access to cash. Police have seized CCTV video footage of the suspect and inquiries are underway by the Fraud Unit.

Advisory – Counterfeit Currency

The Bermuda Police Service has noted a dramatic increase in the seizure of counterfeit currency during the last couple of weeks.

Currently, the printing process being used to produce these notes is unable to reproduce the three important security features contained within each Bermuda bank note – the ‘tuna fish’ watermark, the security thread and the ‘ship’ hologram. The easiest was to spot a fake note is to examine the security thread or the hologram. They are made using material which resembles tin-foil and which has a polished, reflective surface; either silver or gold in colour. On the counterfeit notes, although the detail on these security features is produced fairly accurately; the printers cannot reproduce the polished reflective surface.

If anyone has any information which would assist Police in identifying the persons responsible for distributing these notes, please call the Bermuda Police Service Fraud Unit on 295-0011 or the confidential Crime Stoppers hotline on 1-800-623-8477.