Fake Money, Real Problem

The Washington Post has a story  about a massive counterfeiting operation originating out of South Ossetia, a separatist enclave in Georgia. The enclave is under Russian protection. (Notice the amount of very negative press that Russia is getting all of a sudden? I have.)

TBILISI, Georgia — The U.S. Secret Service and Georgian police are investigating an international counterfeiting operation that stretches from a separatist enclave in this former Soviet republic to Maryland, where fake $100 bills have been seized, according to senior officials and investigators here. The allegations are supported by American diplomats, U.S. court documents and a recent report to Congress.

From a printing press in South Ossetia, a sliver of land with no formally recognized government, more than $20 million in the fake bills has been transported to Israel and the United States, according to investigators. The counterfeit $100 notes have also surfaced in Georgia and Russia, officials said.

The fake notes have been passed at numerous businesses throughout the Baltimore area and have also surfaced in New York, Newark and Buffalo, according to court papers and the joint report to Congress by the Secret Service, the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve. The report, issued in September, also said the number of counterfeit notes produced in this region and passed in the United States has "increased dramatically" in recent years.

The presence in South Ossetia of an international counterfeiting ring capable of producing thousands of bills, according to investigators, is a stark example of how organized crime has flourished, sometimes through the neglect or alleged involvement of officials, in areas of the former Soviet Union whose territorial status remains unresolved 15 years after the fall of communism.

….

Georgian investigators said the fake bills from South Ossetia are made with special ink and paper and have watermarks, different serial numbers and other features that allow them to be easily passed off as real. "They are of very high quality," Konstantin Kemularia, secretary of Georgia's National Security Council, said in an interview.

The counterfeiting operation in the region has become another irritant in U.S. relations with Russia, which acts, in effect, as a protector for South Ossetia; Russian peacekeeping troops patrol the breakaway enclave, and most of its residents have been issued Russian passports.

There is a lot of criminal activity in Russia which is, unfortunately, being felt right here at home. Here's the US Secret Service's website. There are sections for knowing your money and a handy dandy primer for playing Spot The Phony™.