Is the CIA counterfeiting dollars and blaming it on North Korea?

Posted by Joshua Holland at 7:20 AM on January 9, 2007.

"Super notes" -- forged U.S. dollars of such high quality that even experts have trouble detecting them -- have taken on an almost mythic status among national security watchers. Supposedly, they're part of a plot to undermine confidence in the U.S. economy, and at times they've been called an act of war.

Their origins have tended to shift with the political winds; it was said that they originate in Iran, some have speculated that they come from the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon (where they were supposedly produced by Syria) and lately the consensus has been that they're part of a sinister North Korean plan. Others have accused Israel of printing them.

But according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine, a respected German paper, their source may in fact be far closer to home than most people suspected [Translation by Watching America] …

The American secret service, the CIA, could be responsible for manufacturing the nearly-perfect counterfeit 50 and 100-dollar-notes that Washington pins on the terror regime of North Korea. The charge comes after an extensive investigation in Europe and Asia by the Sunday edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeinen Sonntagszeitung of Frankfurt, and after interviews with counterfeit money experts and leading representatives of the high-security publishing industry. […]

The administration of George W. Bush officially accused Pyongyang of the deed in the autumn of 2005, derailing Six-Party Talks on Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program. Since then, tensions on the Korean Peninsula have increased considerably. America charges that North Korea is financing its rocket and nuclear weapons program with the counterfeit "Supernotes."

North Korea is one of the world's poorest nations and lacks the technological capability to produce notes of such high quality. According to the Frankfurter Allgemeinen Sonntagszeitung, North Korea is at present unable to even produce the won [the North Korean currency]. The sources, which do not wish to be identified, allege that the CIA prints the falsified "Supernotes" at a secret facility near Washington to fund covert operations without Congressional oversight.

Joshua Holland is a staff writer at Alternet and a regular contributor to The Gadflyer.