Super dollars
The term Superdollar (or Supernote ) was coined when, around 1994, US secret services came across counterfeit banknotes of such quality that they could hardly be distinguished from the original. These are US $ 100 banknotes made on very high quality paper with high print quality. After extensive investigations, it is believed that they came from Office 39 of the North Korean government.
The US government accuses the North Korean regime of fabricating and circulating this counterfeit money for two reasons, on the one hand out of foreign exchange problems and on the other hand in order to undermine the US and its monetary system. The North Korean government, however, dismissed this as pure hostile propaganda from the West.
According to North Korean defectors, the production of these counterfeit banknotes is a top priority of the state. The embassy in Moscow , the largest embassy in North Korea , is used to circulate them internationally . There are two methods of doing this:
- Almost all diplomats from North Korea travel abroad via Moscow. There they receive their required foreign currency in equal parts from real and counterfeit US dollars.
- Ambassadors in Moscow are said to have made contact with members of organized crime in Russia and former members of the KGB . The former secret service agents, in turn, used their connections to communist parties in Western Europe to smuggle the superdollars into Western currency markets.
In this context, Seán Garland , the chairman of the Irish Workers Party and a high-ranking member of the Official IRA , became conspicuous . He is accused of smuggling the counterfeit money from Russia to Ireland in order to launder it from there in Great Britain . He was arrested in Belfast in October 2005 , meanwhile the US judicial authorities filed an extradition request for a foreign exchange offense. That part of the money laundering ring operating in the United Kingdom has since been broken up by British authorities and its members and accomplices condemned.
Another starting point for the counterfeit banknotes is Macau . At the time, Portugal granted North Korea trade privileges, and since then North Korea has been using Macau as a trading base. Macau-based banks are said to be involved in the spread of the counterfeit money, and the US authorities imposed punitive measures against Banco Delta Asia SARL .
The thesis that the super dollars come from North Korea is not undisputed. The objection is that North Korea does not have a suitable printing press. Due to the paper used, the quality of the counterfeit and the quantities of special printing ink required, some counterfeit investigators suspect that the superdollars would be produced in the CIA's secret printing plant to finance covert operations abroad.
The printing of counterfeit banknotes with the aim of weakening opposing states was already used by the German Reich during the Nazi era during the Second World War . Large quantities of forged pound notes were produced as part of the Bernhard campaign.
Web links
- BBC: What is a superdollar? (engl.)
- BBC: $ 27m counterfeit gang jailed (Engl.)
- Klaus W. Bender : The secret of the forged dollar bills , FAZ article from January 8, 2007 with speculations about the CIA origin of the flowers
Individual evidence
- ↑ FAZ: “Supernotes” - The secret of counterfeit dollar bills . January 16, 2007