When Brigadier General Sar Theth officers tracked three Thai
men in a pick-up truck as it passed through a remote border checkpoint from
Thailand, what they found surprised even them. Inside, he found three cardboard
boxes packed with $7.16m (£4.5m) in counterfeit hundred-dollar bills, the
largest seizure of fake U.S. notes in Southeast Asia for about a decade and the
biggest ever in Cambodia.
"If I close my eyes and touch it, I wouldn't know it
was fake," Sar Theth, the police chief of Battambang, said of the 19
September haul, as he rubbed one of the seized notes between thumb and
forefinger at Battambang police headquarters
According to the US Secret Service, whose agents investigate
financial crime worldwide alongside their better-known role as presidential
bodyguards, the huge bust points to a well-oiled and growing counterfeit
operation in neighbouring Thailand, where identical notes had previously been
seized.
The alleged involvement of Thai military personnel - the
three men arrested were serving or former officers of the Royal Thai Navy -
could also embarrass Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha. A former general,
Prayuth seized power in a 22 May military coup and has vowed to crack down on
organised crime.
The men deny any wrongdoing, and the Thai navy said it was
awaiting the conclusion of the investigation before deciding whether to take
any action.
There is more than $1trn cash in global circulation, three
quarters of it outside the United States, according to the Secret Service.
Tackling counterfeiting is key to maintaining the dollar's credibility as the
de facto world currency.
Less than a quarter of one percent of that $1trn - or about
$2.5bn - are fakes, said J. Kevin Traylor, a Secret Service agent based at the
U.S. Embassy in Bangkok.
"For the amount of currency out there, we have very
little counterfeiting," he told Reuters. "That's why the dollar is
trusted."
By comparison, global losses from credit, debit and prepaid
card fraud in 2012 totalled about $11.3bn, according to the Nilson Report, an
industry newsletter.
In South America, where narco-trafficking and counterfeiting
often go hand in hand, big seizures of fake bills are not uncommon. In June,
the Secret Service helped the Peruvian police arrest a suspected forger along
with $4.5mn in fakes.
But such seizures are rare in south-east Asia. The Cambodian
bust could suggest both an upsurge in counterfeiting and better cooperation
between the Secret Service and local police.
For the Secret Service, seizing notes is secondary to
finding the printing presses and shutting them down.
The agency was created in 1865 as a branch of the US
Treasury to tackle rampant counterfeiting after the Civil War. It was another
36 years before its agents began protecting presidents, vice-presidents and
other VIPs. Even today, most of its 3,200 special agents are busy investigating
financial crime.
Traylor, who visited Battambang to inspect the $7.16m haul
in early October, said $1m of the same "better-than-average" fakes
had already been seized in Thailand. One person has been arrested in the Thai
investigation.
"It is a note that is starting to be manufactured in
larger quantities and our investigation points to Thailand as the origin,"
he said. "We will continue our efforts to locate the plant."
In 2013, with Secret Service help, Thai police made 67
arrests and seized $3.7m in fake dollars. This year's tally is already at 76
arrests and $5.6m seized, not including the Cambodia bust.
The special inks and paper used by the U.S. Treasury to
print dollar bills are tightly controlled. This has helped eradicate offset
printing of fakes in the United States, where counterfeiters rely on methods
such as inkjet printing or colour photocopying.
But offset printing - in which the inked image is
"offset" from a plate to a rubber blanket and then onto the paper -
is still commonly used outside the United States to produce convincing fakes in
greater volume. The process requires expensive inks and presses, as well as
skilled artists.
"You need talented people to do this," said
Special Agent Traylor. And time: he reckoned $7.16m could take perhaps two
months to make.
In the Navy
Royal Thai Navy spokesman Rear Admiral Kan Deeubol confirmed
to Reuters that the three Thai men arrested on 19 September were serving or
former naval officers.
They were arrested after allegedly trying to change fake
bills with a Cambodian contact who was actually a police informant, said
Battambang police chief Sar Theth.
One of them - Chamras Pongsart, 52, a navy captain - was
released after two days. "He was not involved," said Sar Theth.
The two suspects still in custody are: Pramote Raisiri, 48,
described in Thai media reports as a navy sub-lieutenant; and Kittithamet
Meethekulsawat, 47, who Rear Admiral Kan said had resigned from the navy before
the incident.
"They have not been suspended, because the
investigation... is under way and we don't know if they really committed
wrongdoing," said Kan.
The two Thai suspects have been charged with storing and
transporting counterfeit currency, and face between five and 20 years in jail
if found guilty. Their Cambodian lawyer, Chim Dara, told Reuters they denied
any wrongdoing.
The criminal group making the fakes in Thailand is well
organised and linked to other scams, said Traylor. Ongoing investigations
disrupted their operations and forced them "to try Cambodia as a new
market".
The dollar is widely used in Cambodia, and preferred to the
domestic riel currency for high-value transactions such as paying rents and
salaries.
Elsewhere in the world, criminals often use fake dollars to
pay other criminals for narcotics, illegal timber or other contraband.
But Sar Theth said it was "impossible" to shift so
many bills on Cambodia's fake-savvy black market. Even farmers might find the
notes suspect, he said, never mind banks or owners of currency-exchange booths.
Chi Kimcheav, 47, a money changer at Battambang market, said
she relied on touch to detect fakes, which were often betrayed by poor quality
paper. "I've been doing this job for many years," she said. "If
someone gave me a fake, I'd know it."
Credit: The Independent
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