More on Supernotes
by Richardson ~ May 24th, 2007. Filed under: Counterfeiting, Economics, Geopolitics. 
This photo is from the article linked to in yesterday’s post on a Swiss report questioning the veracity of U.S. claims that North Korea is behind the supernote counterfeits.
Although supernotes have been described as more perfect than genuine $100 bills, it’s interesting to be able to see that the ink in the original bleeds more than in the fake. The missing line in the original could have been by design, but I don’t see any mention of that possibility.
While almost a year old, this NYT Magazine article by Stephen Mihm, “No Ordinary Counterfeit,” is well worth a read in its entirety for a good background and history of supernotes.
May 27th, 2007 at 12:45 am
Assertions by the Swiss that a customer of one of their prestige enterprises related to money is not involved look self-serving. The assertions sound something like what the Swiss said regarding Nazi deposits in Swiss banks. Supposedly Swiss banks did not contain money or any other assets stolen by the Nazis. That proved to be not quite true.
There is nothing unique to the US government that makes the US the only possible producer of $100 notes - legitimate or not - or that precludes the DPRK from producing a good counterfeit. There is no obvious reason why a country with the technical sophistication and one-off manufacturing capability to produce a nuclear device that actually more or less worked would not be able to round-up and make use of the necessary ingredients for the super notes.
The DPRK has lots of motive, opportunity and, no doubt, the means including the necessary press. Also, the DPRK counterfeiters have a world-wide distribution network using diplomatic pouches.
Assertions that Fourdrinier machines used to make the necessary paper (see books and articles elsewhere) are somehow so rare, complex and expensive that they are not seen in any except the most technically advanced and rich countries do not wash. Toilet paper and banknote paper are both made on Fourdrinier machines, specialized to their intended output. All are large, expensive and complex if they turn out paper meeting stated specifications, no matter where they are located - and they are located around the world.
The assertion that the limited distribution of the super notes makes no sense - everything that has been seized to date could have been produced in less than a day - assumes something that cannot be known except to the counterfeiters. There is no way to know but no reason to believe that what has been so far identified as counterfeit is the totality of what has been produced.
All of that said, the DPRK is unlikely to be alone as a post WWII government sponsor of counterfeiting. As far back as a few months after Lon Nol kicked the Communist embassies out of Cambodia in 1970, other super notes were in circulation in South East Asia. Those notes were believed at the time to have come from one, maybe more, of the Communist embassies in Cambodia by way of hasty efforts to burn them (”save the typewriters but $100 bills are easy to come by” ?????) rather than move them during evacuation. Banks in SEA were told at the time to accept US $100 notes that showed any evidence of ever having been in a fire as a collection item only: that is for banking purposes to treat them the same way a suspicious looking check would be treated. The suspect notes were to be sent to the US Secret Service for examination prior to credit being given - if they passed examination. The main suspect source at the time was not the DPRK, but one of the DPRK’s close neighbors and a very good friend that then as now was using fine-line design elements on its currency, probably as a counterfeit deterrent.