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 ...
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.
ACT OF WAR!!!
Seems like a pretty small-time shipment to be a government operation. They could just as easily have shipped $3M or $300M.
But..but...but...he's soooo ronrey....
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?
I'm sure we just caught a small sample. I wonder how much of this stuff they could be passing around overseas among banks.
Three million dollars’ worth arrived on another ship in Newark two months later
I think it's supposed to be $300,000,000.
There is a comma after the second set of zeros.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 ;)
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!
Psst ... Lake Toplitz (and the British five-pound note).
Interesting. Thanks for posting.
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.
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'.
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