Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), a German daily newspaper, accuses the CIA of being the source of sophisticated, almost perfect, counterfeit US bills called “super-notes” or “super-dollars.” FAZ claims that the CIA prints the bills in a secret facility close to Washington, DC. The US government has long accused North Korea of being the source of the “super-notes,” but this claim remains unproven and disputed by some. [Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Frankfurt), 1/7/2007] In early 2008, McClatchy Newspapers will publish a similar article. It will note that the Secret Service has presented no actual evidence that the North Koreans are behind the notes, and witnesses making that claim have been discredited. The State Department has stopped accusing North Korea of making the notes. In May 2007, the Swiss federal police conclude an investigation and decide it is unlikely the North Koreans are behind the notes, though they do not know just who is. Remarkably, the super-notes have gone through at least 19 different versions, each corresponding to a tiny change in US engraving plates. Thomas Ferguson, former director of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, says the super-notes appear to have been made by someone with access to some government’s printing equipment. Klaus Bender, the author of a book on the subject, “claims that the super-notes are of such high quality and are updated so frequently that they could be produced only by a US government agency such as the CIA.” The article will note that the CIA counterfeited the Soviet Union’s currency during the Cold War, and “Making limited quantities of sophisticated counterfeit notes also could help intelligence and law enforcement agencies follow payments or illicit activities or track the movement of funds among unsavory regimes, terrorist groups, and others.” [McClatchy Newspapers, 1/10/2008]