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No Ordinary Counterfeit [North Korean $100 Bills]
The New York Times ^ | July 23, 2006 | By STEPHEN MIHM

Posted on 07/23/2006 8:19:04 AM PDT by aculeus

On Oct. 2, 2004, the container ship Ever Unique, sailing under a Panamanian flag from Yantai, China, berthed in the Port of Newark. [snip] ... F.B.I. and Secret Service agents, acting as part of a sting operation, gathered around the container and cracked it open ... they found counterfeit $100 bills worth more than $300,000, secreted in false-bottomed compartments.

The counterfeits were nearly flawless. They featured the same high-tech color-shifting ink as genuine American bills and were printed on paper with the same precise composition of fibers. The engraved images were, if anything, finer than those produced by the United States Bureau of Engraving and Printing.

Counterfeits of this superior sort — known as supernotes — had been detected by law-enforcement officials before, elsewhere in the world, but the Newark shipment marked their first known appearance in the United States, at least in such large quantities.

[snip]

The arrests also prompted a more momentous accusation. After the indictments were released, U.S. government and law-enforcement officials began to say in public something that they had long said in private: the counterfeits were being manufactured not by small-time crooks or even sophisticated criminal cartels but by the government of North Korea. “The North Koreans have denied that they are engaged in the distribution and manufacture of counterfeits, but the evidence is overwhelming that they are,”

[snip]

The counterfeiting of American currency by North Korea might seem, to some [like the New York Times? -ed], to be a minor provocation by that country’s standards.

[snip]

But several current and former Bush administration officials whom I spoke with several months ago maintain that the counterfeiting is in important ways a comparable outrage. ... counterfeits, by creating mistrust in the American currency, posed a “threat to the American people.”

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Extended News
KEYWORDS: actofwar; axisofevil; counterfeit; counterfeiting; geopolitics; hijackingbygoldbugs; koreanwar; northkorea; orgainisedcrime; smuggling; threadhijack
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1 posted on 07/23/2006 8:19:04 AM PDT by aculeus
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To: aculeus

I would remind all (FReepers) and sundry (administration members who lurk on FR) that counterfeiting another country's currency is an act of war.

Evidently Kim-Il Jong does not value the armistice which secures his despotate from American attack.


2 posted on 07/23/2006 8:21:56 AM PDT by The_Reader_David (And when they behead your own people in the wars which are to come, then you will know. . .)
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To: aculeus

ACT OF WAR!!!


3 posted on 07/23/2006 8:23:27 AM PDT by NonValueAdded (Occupation does not cause terrorism; terrorism causes occupation. (A. Dershowitz))
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To: aculeus

Seems like a pretty small-time shipment to be a government operation. They could just as easily have shipped $3M or $300M.


4 posted on 07/23/2006 8:23:52 AM PDT by Restorer
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To: The_Reader_David

But..but...but...he's soooo ronrey....


5 posted on 07/23/2006 8:24:15 AM PDT by nevergore (“It could be that the purpose of my life is simply to serve as a warning to others.”)
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To: The_Reader_David
counterfeiting another country's currency is an act of war.

Is it? I'm not up enough on international law to know if this is one of the specific actions that is "an act of war".

Source please? Anyone?

6 posted on 07/23/2006 8:25:10 AM PDT by null and void (<----admits nothing, denies everything and makes counter accusations.)
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To: Restorer
"Seems like a pretty small-time shipment to be a government operation. They could just as easily have shipped $3M or $300M."

I'm sure we just caught a small sample. I wonder how much of this stuff they could be passing around overseas among banks.

7 posted on 07/23/2006 8:26:02 AM PDT by KoRn
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To: Restorer
from the article:

Three million dollars’ worth arrived on another ship in Newark two months later

8 posted on 07/23/2006 8:26:03 AM PDT by jjw
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To: Restorer

I think it's supposed to be $300,000,000.

There is a comma after the second set of zeros.


9 posted on 07/23/2006 8:27:11 AM PDT by Bigh4u2 (Denial is the first requirement to be a liberal)
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To: The_Reader_David

So what do we call the continuous printing on our gumt's presses, when there is nothing to stand behind it but a (less than) worthless IOU?


10 posted on 07/23/2006 8:27:58 AM PDT by pageonetoo (You'll spot their posts soon enough!)
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To: aculeus

Our bank held a workshop on the "supernotes" for local business because they were being passed around.

They are almost imperceptible from the real thing.


11 posted on 07/23/2006 8:27:59 AM PDT by Valpal1 (Big Media is like Barney Fife with a gun.)
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To: Restorer

We inspect 5% of containers, so one container with 300K is the spillage of running dozens of containers into the US. Most counterfeits are used overseas, it is so bad that most foreign merchants will not take a US 100 dollar bill, and these are the ones in proximity to Us FOBs and bases.


12 posted on 07/23/2006 8:28:13 AM PDT by reluctantwarrior (Strength and Honor, just call me Buzzkill for short......)
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To: aculeus

Only a state with its resources could produce something like that. That is basically an act of war for a state to engage in such a thing.


13 posted on 07/23/2006 8:28:57 AM PDT by tomzz
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To: Restorer

I think it would depend on the uses of it. If the attempt is to undermine the value of the currency then yeah 300k is small time, however if the attempt is to make a profit or to use it as real currency at face value then the perps probably would rather keep the production at a fairly unnoticeable level.


14 posted on 07/23/2006 8:30:15 AM PDT by aft_lizard (born conservative...I chose to be a republican)
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To: null and void

Counterfeiting another nation's currency is generally accepted to be an economic act of war, and that standard was established long ago.

I would suggest that if you want the precise citation of international or U.S. law, that as the saying goes,

"Google Is Your Friend"

(just don't download their toolbars and other spyware ;)


15 posted on 07/23/2006 8:30:36 AM PDT by mkjessup (The Shah doesn't look so bad now, eh? But nooo, Jimmah said the Ayatollah was a 'godly' man.)
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To: aculeus

Iran was involved in this before the last round of changes to the $100 bill, and was largely responsible for that change.

That ol' Axis of Evil keeps rearing it's ugly head!


16 posted on 07/23/2006 8:32:23 AM PDT by gridlock (The 'Pubbies will pick up two (2) seats in the Senate and four (4) seats in the House in 2006)
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To: All

Psst ... Lake Toplitz (and the British five-pound note).


17 posted on 07/23/2006 8:35:18 AM PDT by jamaksin
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To: aculeus

Interesting. Thanks for posting.


18 posted on 07/23/2006 8:35:42 AM PDT by PGalt
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To: tomzz

OK. So why aren't we - with our far superior technology, dropping planeloads of counterfeit NK currency across the peninsula?

Seriously. Drive the NK economy even further into the ground.

Maybe it will prompt Kim to adopt the SK Won, then (frankly it would be worth it) Kim can be promised a fancy oceanfront Villa on the Sea of Japan with all the movies and babes he can handle - and the dismantling of that Marxist regime can begin.

It would beat the alternative.


19 posted on 07/23/2006 8:36:07 AM PDT by Cringing Negativism Network (Oppose Global Hot Air)
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To: pageonetoo

Money is now a 'commodity' traded on the market.

It isn't a tradition 'IOU' as was given when you gave something to someone with a promise it would be paided in the future.

It is a 'good' that is traded in exchange for a product or service.

In and of itself, that is not a problem because it's easier to carry 'dollars' around then a truck load of chickens, or pigs or whatever you want to 'barter' with.

The problem comes when the Government decides it needs more 'bargaining power' and prints excess dollars which flood the market.

That drives the dollars value down, and in return, ends up hurting everyones bargaining power and reduces the value of their 'goods'.


20 posted on 07/23/2006 8:37:08 AM PDT by Bigh4u2 (Denial is the first requirement to be a liberal)
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