eldorado
02-16-2005, 06:58 PM
Superdollars first caught the public's attention in 1992.
They originated in Iran and were being used as a weapon
against the West, said the news reports.
A 'superdollar' is the name given to an almost perfect
forgery of a U.S. banknote. Print enough of them, so the
theory went, and you could destabilize the world's reserve
currency.
Nothing ever came of Iran's 'superdollar' money machine,
and the rumors faded...until 1998.
In 1998, began a television documentary by the BBC, a
small-time crook walked into a bureau de change in Britain
to change a batch of fake $100 bills. The documentary was
titled, "The Super Dollar," and aired in 2004.
The lady behind the counter at the bureau de change would
never have known the bills were fakes, but someone tipped
off the police and they raided the shop. Detectives
discovered the best counterfeit hundred dollar bills
Britain's national crime squad had ever seen.
"It required an expert to look at it very carefully with at
least a powerful magnifying glass," said DCI Mark Smith.
"They would go through banks, they could be cashed at
travel exchanges, bureaus de change, they were that good,
that well made, that sophisticated. The standard of the
quality of these notes is particularly unusual."
The bills were sent to Washington. At the secret service
headquarters, analysts were also amazed at the quality.
In the late-1980s, U.S. intelligence had reported that the
North Koreans had a printing press known as 'an Intaglio.'
This press is similar to the one used to print bank notes
in the U.S. Could they be the culprits? Investigative
journalists from the BBC flew to Korea on a hunt for
defectors. They found two...
"The counterfeiting was all done at government level,"
confirmed an unnamed North Korean collared by the BBC. "We
had a special plant for doing it in Pyeongseong, one of the
cities in the province Pyeongahnnamdo."
"We bought the best of everything, the best equipment and
the best ink, but we also had the very best people, people
who had real expertise and knowledge in the field,"
continued the informant. "Then, when government officials
or diplomats traveled to South East Asia, they distributed
the counterfeit notes mixed in with the real ones at a
ratio of about 50-50."
A former North Korean diplomat corroborates the story, "I
was at a local bank in Thailand changing dollars in the
bureau de change. They told me that the money I was giving
them was counterfeit. I had fake notes mixed in with the
real ones."
"Ordinary North Korean people can't go abroad," continues
defector #2. "The only people who can deal in this money
are diplomatic or business travelers. That's how the
counterfeit is exchanged abroad."
After an extensive investigation by international
intelligence services, reports the BBC in conclusion, it
was found that many of these 'superdollars' washed up in
Britain, imported by the IRA and supplied by Russian
mobsters. Of all the North Korean embassies in the world,
the biggest is in Moscow, hence the Russian connection. The
embassy was the hub of the whole operation, allegedly.
Five years and a bear market later, do the world's forgers
no longer care about 'superdollars'?
Apparently they're all turning their attention to the euro.
Police at the anti-counterfeit unit in Hamburg saw a huge
increase in illegal copying of the euro in 2002 and 2003,
reports the BBC. "I predict that by the end of this year
we'll be dealing with twice as many fake notes as last
year," said Chief Detective Inspector Schmidt speaking in
2003.
And just three months ago, Angelo Angelopoulos, a U.S.
Secret Service agent in Bulgaria, speaking at a conference
on anti-counterfeiting techniques in November 2004, said
forgery of the U.S. dollar "has abruptly decreased in the
last two years."
We highlight this trend as anecdotal evidence of a dollar
bear market and to propose a new challenge for
counterfeiters: fake gold coins.
[Ed. Note: Trying to undermine the U.S. currency by
printing counterfeit dollars is a dumb scheme. You'd be
competing with Alan Greenspan. He prints more cash than any
Iranian despot ever could. It's working too...the dollar is
destabilizing.
They originated in Iran and were being used as a weapon
against the West, said the news reports.
A 'superdollar' is the name given to an almost perfect
forgery of a U.S. banknote. Print enough of them, so the
theory went, and you could destabilize the world's reserve
currency.
Nothing ever came of Iran's 'superdollar' money machine,
and the rumors faded...until 1998.
In 1998, began a television documentary by the BBC, a
small-time crook walked into a bureau de change in Britain
to change a batch of fake $100 bills. The documentary was
titled, "The Super Dollar," and aired in 2004.
The lady behind the counter at the bureau de change would
never have known the bills were fakes, but someone tipped
off the police and they raided the shop. Detectives
discovered the best counterfeit hundred dollar bills
Britain's national crime squad had ever seen.
"It required an expert to look at it very carefully with at
least a powerful magnifying glass," said DCI Mark Smith.
"They would go through banks, they could be cashed at
travel exchanges, bureaus de change, they were that good,
that well made, that sophisticated. The standard of the
quality of these notes is particularly unusual."
The bills were sent to Washington. At the secret service
headquarters, analysts were also amazed at the quality.
In the late-1980s, U.S. intelligence had reported that the
North Koreans had a printing press known as 'an Intaglio.'
This press is similar to the one used to print bank notes
in the U.S. Could they be the culprits? Investigative
journalists from the BBC flew to Korea on a hunt for
defectors. They found two...
"The counterfeiting was all done at government level,"
confirmed an unnamed North Korean collared by the BBC. "We
had a special plant for doing it in Pyeongseong, one of the
cities in the province Pyeongahnnamdo."
"We bought the best of everything, the best equipment and
the best ink, but we also had the very best people, people
who had real expertise and knowledge in the field,"
continued the informant. "Then, when government officials
or diplomats traveled to South East Asia, they distributed
the counterfeit notes mixed in with the real ones at a
ratio of about 50-50."
A former North Korean diplomat corroborates the story, "I
was at a local bank in Thailand changing dollars in the
bureau de change. They told me that the money I was giving
them was counterfeit. I had fake notes mixed in with the
real ones."
"Ordinary North Korean people can't go abroad," continues
defector #2. "The only people who can deal in this money
are diplomatic or business travelers. That's how the
counterfeit is exchanged abroad."
After an extensive investigation by international
intelligence services, reports the BBC in conclusion, it
was found that many of these 'superdollars' washed up in
Britain, imported by the IRA and supplied by Russian
mobsters. Of all the North Korean embassies in the world,
the biggest is in Moscow, hence the Russian connection. The
embassy was the hub of the whole operation, allegedly.
Five years and a bear market later, do the world's forgers
no longer care about 'superdollars'?
Apparently they're all turning their attention to the euro.
Police at the anti-counterfeit unit in Hamburg saw a huge
increase in illegal copying of the euro in 2002 and 2003,
reports the BBC. "I predict that by the end of this year
we'll be dealing with twice as many fake notes as last
year," said Chief Detective Inspector Schmidt speaking in
2003.
And just three months ago, Angelo Angelopoulos, a U.S.
Secret Service agent in Bulgaria, speaking at a conference
on anti-counterfeiting techniques in November 2004, said
forgery of the U.S. dollar "has abruptly decreased in the
last two years."
We highlight this trend as anecdotal evidence of a dollar
bear market and to propose a new challenge for
counterfeiters: fake gold coins.
[Ed. Note: Trying to undermine the U.S. currency by
printing counterfeit dollars is a dumb scheme. You'd be
competing with Alan Greenspan. He prints more cash than any
Iranian despot ever could. It's working too...the dollar is
destabilizing.