Vanity Fair, of all publications, has a lengthy article on North Korea’s counterfeiting operations, including Office 39. Well worth a read. (h/t NE Asia Matters)

From the AP: “Stuart Levey, the Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, told lawmakers in prepared testimony [Tuesday] that “high-quality counterfeit bills produced by North Korea, known as the ‘Supernote,’ continue to surface.” “

Via PC World: “An U.S. company has introduced a small counterfeit bill detector designed for retail use that can sniff out the “super dollar,” a convincing yet bogus US$100 bill allegedly produced in North Korea.”

Update: Bolton has his say:
Congressmen, human rights activists, and a former ambassador are challenging the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s plan to transfer $25 million in frozen funds to North Korea… “These are tainted funds and it would be bad enough to have a private bank handle them, let alone the Fed,” a former [...]

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 [...]

This report raises some questions, and while I’m no currency expert, I’m not sure they’re valid questions (seems they’ve already been answered):
The Swiss federal criminal police, in a report released Monday, expresses serious doubt that North Korea is capable of manufacturing the fake bills, which it said were superior to real ones.
The Swiss report includes [...]

Last week Christopher Hill thought the BDA funds issue was solved, which of course turned out not to be the case; Bank of China officials appeared to be unaware of what Chinese diplomatic officials had to say about the situation, and also appeared not to want to receive the tainted North Korean money.
However, there is [...]

To early to tell if this has anything at all to do with North Korea’s U.S. currency counterfeiting operations, but it would not be a leap for them to be involved in fake bonds:
Police recovered a briefcase containing a hoard of probably forged United States Treasury bonds worth $500 million during the investigation of a [...]

From Yahoo: South Korean bank joins US sanctions against North Korea
Korea Exchange Bank, controlled by US equity fund Lone Star, has terminated all transactions with Banco Delta Asia, accused by Washington of laundering money for North Korea. The bank is the first South Korean financial institution to join US-imposed sanctions against the Macau-based [...]

From the AP: Agency: North Korea Not Counterfeiting
South Korea’s spy agency said Thursday that North Korea was not currently producing counterfeit currency, apparently contradicting U.S. allegations that have become the latest obstacle in nuclear disarmament talks with the communist country… Asked whether the North is currently printing counterfeit money, the agency said: [...]