Posted on 01/30/2014 6:53:38 AM PST by shove_it
NEW YORK CITY — It’s all about the Benjamins.
An international counterfeiting ring has been pumping millions of dollars in phony $100 bills into New York and other cities in the metropolitan area in the past several years, forcing the Secret Service to step up its operation to shut it down, sources told "On The Inside."
Federal officials are tracking the mules who smuggle bogus bills into the country and distributing an alert to New York businesses, banks and security industry personnel that teaches how to detect the fake C-notes, a copy of which DNAinfo New York obtained.
The counterfeit cash appears to have been manufactured on offset printing machines using plates and ink, rather than on more sophisticated copiers, according to Michael Seremetis, the assistant special agent in charge of the New York Secret Service office.
The loot is produced in bulk and bundled into packages that are smuggled in luggage or carried on planes by couriers who get about 40-cents on the dollar to put the fakes into circulation.
“The network is similar to that of the narcotics trade,” Seremetis explained. “It is distributed via a sophisticated network that involves several mules who do the passing of the notes here in the tri-state area.”
The Secret Service warning says the bills contain a set of five different serial numbers and have two black 7s above the last zero on the lower right-hand corner, above the “100” mark on the back of the bill.
Although the Super Bowl game is taking place in the New York City area, officials are downplaying any connection between those festivities and the timing of their warning — and insist counterfeiters are not using the big game as a convenient time to pass off their funny money.
The counterfeit cash frequently turns up in clubs, bars and casinos, officials said. Department stores over holiday periods are typical targets.
Officials say that if you have a phony $100 that is confiscated, you will lose the value of the money but can declare a tax loss at the end of the year.
“We are asking the public to let us know if they encounter these bills,” Seremetis said.
Officials asked anyone with information to call the Secret Service's New Haven office at (203) 865-2449, or the NYPD at 1-800-577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.
They don’t sound very sophisticated. Do they have the plastic strip with ‘100’ imbedded?
Coming in from Mexico?
Some of the best forgeries come form N.Korea and Iran as Billy Carter’s brother Jimmy sold them us presses.
Coming via the New York Branch of the Federal Reserve. /snort
phony $100 bills
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Is there any other kind?
Roger that. You got the bigger story right.
And the diff between this gang and the treasury dorks is?
-— Get it right... the Fed is creating BILLIONS of dollars in Monopoly Money. They call it “Quantitative Easing -—
I LOLed, and then I went, “oh...”
Why doesnt the left see this as just another form of discrimination? They want to allow illegals into the country and declare them citizens, why not allow illegal money as well and declare it legal tender? Who are we to say that money made in another country isnt as good as our own? Celebrate diversity and multicurrancyism!
Good question.
phony $100 bills
Is there any other kind?
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Actually yes, there is, of course, the phony kind that these people are bringing into New York and then there is the double secret probation phony money that the Fed creates. Of the two the Fed’s double secret probation counterfeit money does by far the greater damage.
re: Coming in from Mexico?
More than likely they are coming from Washington DC and the Treasury Dept. same as they have been doing for the past 100 years.
The tremendous irony is that economics have overwhelmed the very idea of counterfeiting.
To start with, all US paper money is printed in just two high security Bureau of Engraving and Printing offices, one in Washington, D.C., and the other in Fort Worth, TX.
Working around the clock, printing mostly $1 bills, and proportionately fewer $5,$10,$20,$50 and $100 bills, they can barely produce enough paper currency to back just less than 5% of daily US retail. (And most $100 bills are sent to other countries who must have physical US paper money.)
So if someone else is willing to print higher quality counterfeit paper money for us, it really isn’t a problem, because we *need* more paper money in circulation.
Some years ago, Iran tried counterfeiting US dollars, and did us a huge favor in the process.
First of all, the Middle East was desperately short of US paper money. It helped to ease that shortage, and in doing so, it made local currencies less desirable. Everybody wanted dollars, and followed Gresham’s law (economics) by spending their local money and saving dollars.
It was also very expensive for the US to ship planeloads of dollars to the Middle East. And the real zinger was that all told, the Iranians probably made about $300 million by doing so, when over the same time period they made $6 billion on just oil sales.
Some wits suggested that the USBEP should just rename the Iranian counterfeiters as the “Iranian USBEP office.”
They are just doing the same thing the Federal reserve has been doing for the last five years.
Does it really matter? Its all just paper, US treasury or counterfeit, and built on a Ponzi scheme from the get go. Is it better to have a piece of paper that says “$100” on it, or 4 or 5 boxes of .45 acp?
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