Forgery

Forgery

Forgery is an offence under section 71 of the Crimes Ordinance (Cap. 200). The maximum penalty is 14 years’ imprisonment.

Under the section, a person commits forgery if he makes a false instrument with the intention that he or another person would use it to accept the instrument as genuine, and by doing so would cause prejudice. 

The essence of a false instrument is that it is made so that it appears to be genuine when in fact it is not. For example, if it claims to be made or authorised by someone who did not in fact make or authorise it, contains terms or changes that were never genuinely made, gives a false time, place, or circumstance of its creation, or is said to be made by a person who does not exist. A person also makes a false instrument if they alter an existing one so that it becomes false in any way, even if it was already false before. Examples of false instruments include a document bearing a false signature (so that it appears to be a document being signed by the person when he in fact did not sign or authorize the signature) . 

The term “instrument” covers: (a) any kind of document, whether formal or informal; (b) postage stamps or revenue stamps; (c) seals or dies; and (d) discs, cards, tapes, microchips, sound tracks, or any other device used to record or store information by mechanical, electronic, or other means. 

Examples of false instruments include falsified credit cards, falsified student identification cards, and falsified sick leave certificates. Instruments could also be image files stored on mobile telephones, computer hard disks, or notebook computers, such as a digital image of a fake bank letter on the mobile phone.

Intention

The offence of forgery requires the offender to bear the intention at the time of making the false instrument that such instrument would be used to induce somebody to accept it as genuine; and the intention to induce someone, by accepting the instrument as genuine, to do or not to do some act that would prejudice himself or someone else.

Even if a person did not personally make the false instrument, sections in the Crimes Ordinance (Cap. 200) also prohibits the using and possession of such.