Thread: Iraq/Dinar News. 09/05 to 01/14/07

justpraying : AGAIN WHAT DOES THIS TYPE OF ARTICLE HAVE TO DO WITH DINAR INFO ?

Originally Posted by rodney ewalt

Hey everbody, I heard today on the radio that Columbians are using the new Iraqi dinars to counterfeit US dollars. Supposedly bleaching the currency paper and then printing over it. They're counterfeiting mostly $100 bills and they've chosen the Iraqi currency because of the quality of the paper and because it's so cheap purchase.

Has anyone else heard of this or know anything about it? I'm wonder, since they know this is being done, how long before they change value so as to prevent this from continuing?

Any thoughts, anyone?

Neno posted on this a few pages back saying they were using OLD dinars (Sadamm) for counerfeiting

Originally Posted by rodney ewalt

Hey everbody, I heard today on the radio that Columbians are using the new Iraqi dinars to counterfeit US dollars. Supposedly bleaching the currency paper and then printing over it. They're counterfeiting mostly $100 bills and they've chosen the Iraqi currency because of the quality of the paper and because it's so cheap purchase.

Has anyone else heard of this or know anything about it? I'm wonder, since they know this is being done, how long before they change value so as to prevent this from continuing?

Any thoughts, anyone?

I copied what neno said, it is the Old Money
Heard something today for a "First"......

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posted by neno
Before I catch-up, thought I would share something I heard for the first time ever about the word "Dinar" on the radio waves today.

It was a report on Columbia Drug Cartels creating counterfit USD from the "OLD" Iraqi Dinar. The report stated that, The Old Iraq Dianr is worhtless". (I found that amusing, the "OLd Iraqi Dinar) Why would the Cartels use it for Counterfiting.

Well what was said was that there is a use for the "Old" notes afterall. The Columbian Drug Cartels have gotten their hands on the Plates and truckloads of the "OLD" notes. What they do is, take the "Old" notes and Bleach them. Then use the paper to print Counterfit USD. Then they have their runners hit Disney World and change it out. Pretty amazing.

But what I found the most News was when the reporter did say that the "OLD" Iraqi Dinar was worthless. Hummmmm, well then I would say that the media knows that there is the "Iraqi New Dinar". Can not wait to here it mentioned soon with a "BIG FAT REVALUE to it. Just thought I would shar that funny bit with you all. I finally heard the Dinar mentioned, but the "OLD" one.

I heard that they were new dinars because the paper was the same as the US Dollar. Don't know which is true just throwing it out there.

You know what, why are they still talking about giving away the 10,000 ID. It was supposed to be so they could buy gifts for others during EID which is customary during that holiday. I’m sure that even though it was only $6.78, there are still a lot of pissed off Iraqis because they never got what was promised to them. Even though it’s not much money I would think that some people were happy to hear about getting it & started making up their EID shopping list only to be told it won’t happen when it’s supposed to. There were articles about how that amount was an insult, but more of an insult was not getting it. I would think that most Iraqis don’t much care for the way the Government handled this & also the stipends we heard about months ago that never went out. I don’t think giving these people that 10,000 ID will make them any happier with the government unless they do an RV with it.

Kuwait is witnessing today the launching of the initiative of the International meetings with Iraq

Source : Middle East 31 / 10 / 06

Opens in Kuwait today of the meetings of the preparatory group for the adoption of the Covenant (contract) international with Iraq, that includes fourteen countries and seven international organizations. The opening of the meetings, Deputy Prime Minister of Kuwait, Sheikh Mohammad al-Sabah, the presence of representatives of States and stakeholders, The most prominent Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, Deputy Treasury Secretary Robert Kimmitt.
The group is composed of 14 State preparatory to the part of Iraq, , namely Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates and the United States and Britain, Finland (the current chairman of the European Union), France, Germany, Japan, Canada, Italy, South Korea and Spain. Also attending the meetings, representatives of international organizations and institutions, the United Nations, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Islamic Development Bank and the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development.
The aim of the preparatory meetings to reach a final version of the document (contract) International, , which announced in a formal meeting expected to be held before the end of this year between the Iraqi government and various international parties concerned.
Distributed meetings today at the three meetings, preceded by opening protocols, will the words of the host State, the United Nations and the Iraqi government, then finally wrap-up session to suspend representatives of the countries participating in the meeting. What do you suppose this means???
And will the Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh during the first meeting the government's vision of the commitments, goals and national aspirations, seeking to achieve during the International Decade with Iraq. With the second session was devoted to discuss the shared commitments and support for sustainable development in Iraq and ways of financing, and the third to discuss the mechanism to implement the contract, in accordance with the vision of the Iraqi government, the World Bank and the United Nations on this issue. During the meeting, and will discuss the draft document for the International Decade with Iraq, which contains the goals and aspirations and national vision for Iraq for the years 2006 / 2011, initiated prepared by the Iraqi government to support and care from the international community, and that will determine the institutional mechanism for the implementation of the final form and identify needs major investment and the allocation of contributions by a high degree of flexibility.
The document contains measures political, security and social and economic achievement of national goals for Iraq, also includes detail on the financial prospects of the state, including the major investment needs, during the contract period, concepts of the mechanisms, procedures and steps for its implementation and the role of the Iraqi government, the international community and its obligations to the contract.
.The document containing the goals and aspirations of the Iraqi government is seeking to achieve during the contract period, in the medium term, the most important achievement of the aspirations of the Iraqi people to security, national unity, democracy, peace and the building of a federal and improving the national economy and achieve sustainable development on the basis of the free market and openness to the global economy and integration with the economies of neighboring states.

Translated version of http://www.alzawraa.net/home/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4695&Ite mid=73

Cheers!
DayDream

Originally Posted by cigarman

I heard that they were new dinars because the paper was the same as the US Dollar. Don't know which is true just throwing it out there.

No Since in it. I just got off the Phone with Rodney as we work together and corrected him after figuring out he asumed that they said New. I listen to this station allday. They mentioned this three times on my shift. And everytime it was said that it was the "OLD" Sadam Iraqi Dinar.

But Hey Cigarman, we do have the best Investigators around right here on RC. Lets put them to the challenge to find a Article Now on the subjet. What do you say?

Hint I heard this on NPR, BBC, Kera, take your pick. GO>>>>>>>>>>>

Seems they've been doing it since 2002 .....

07/09/02
Page A1



Colombia's latest cash crop: counterfeit bills

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Country has become largest exporter of fake American currency



By TOD ROBBERSON
Latin America Bureau



BOGOTÁ, Colombia - Long infamous as the kidnapping and cocaine-trafficking capital of the world, Colombia has acquired yet another underworld accolade as the leading exporter of counterfeit U.S. dollar bills.

U.S. and Colombian officials say the flood of counterfeit dollars emerging from this country has surged at alarming rates in recent years, similar to the increase in wartime violence, general lawlessness and drug-trafficking activity.

"Colombia is and has been the most prolific country for counterfeiting dollars in the world," a U.S. Embassy official said. "We estimate that 43 percent of all counterfeit U.S. dollar bills in circulation worldwide originate in Colombia."

The problem has attracted the attention of the U.S. Secret Service. Under the jurisdiction of the Treasury Department, the Secret Service is charged with - among other duties - enforcing currency laws, and has established a fully staffed office at the U.S. Embassy.

Part of Secret Service staff is a counterfeit bill-sniffing dog, Mike. The 6-year-old Belgian shepherd is flown in by the Secret Service from the United States every five weeks to help uncover dollar-printing plants.

So far, Mike's ink-sensitive nose has led authorities to the seizure of more than $10 million in bogus bills, said Francy Villegas, a detective with the Department of Administrative Security, Colombia's equivalent of the FBI.

Since January 2001, the Secret Service and Colombian authorities have seized more than $140 million in counterfeit U.S. currency that originated in Colombia. Raids on counterfeiting operations - most of which are occurring around the western city of Cali - are leading to an average of one to two arrests every week.

The explosion in counterfeiting has paralleled a general increase in criminal activity in Colombia in recent years as police and military authorities have focused most of their efforts on fighting insurgent groups, said Hector Otalora, a DAS detective assigned with Ms. Villegas to Interpol, the international police agency.

Primary currency

The problem has grown worse, he added, because various Latin American countries have decided in recent years to adopt the dollar as their primary or secondary official currency - without employing specialists trained in detecting bogus bills.

"The counterfeiters are exporting to the countries where their false bills can be mixed in most easily with real dollars," Ms. Villegas explained.

Most of those countries, including El Salvador, Guatemala, Argentina and Ecuador, adopted the dollar as a means of stabilizing their economies because their own currencies had dropped so much in value.

Estimates of the total amount of counterfeit dollars circulating around the world vary widely. The Treasury Department estimates that no more than one out of every $5,000 in circulation worldwide is counterfeit, which means that up to $100 million in counterfeit dollars could be circulating out of the 500 billion real dollars now in print. A 1998 study by the U.S. Federal Reserve said it was "highly unlikely" that more than $160 million in bogus bills were in circulation.

At any moment, however, those figures could change dramatically. In Asia, police recently seized equipment capable of printing $5 billion in fake bills, and the advent of high-quality scanners, printers and copy machines makes the task of creating counterfeit currency far easier.

Colombian-manufactured counterfeit dollars have been discovered across the Caribbean as well as in Europe and Asia. Authorities even are on alert in Afghanistan, where credit cards are worthless and all transactions are made on a cash-only, dollar-preferred basis.

Thousands of crisp new $100 bills are traded every day at local currency markets in Kabul, where few people have the expertise to distinguish the real item from its counterfeit counterpart.

In Panama, where the U.S. dollar has been the official currency for decades, the American consulate earlier this year posted a sign at its cashier window stating that it would not accept dollar bills in $50 or $100 denominations - apparently because of the influx of counterfeit bills mostly in those denominations.

The consulate's decision, which has since been reversed, marked one of the rare occasions in U.S. history where the U.S. government was refusing to honor its own currency.

The Treasury Department's stated policy is that, "whether old or new, all U.S. currency will always be honored at full face value."

A U.S. Embassy spokesman in Panama said the consulate "accepts all U.S. currency for consular services. Officers and clerks examine bills closely out of concern for possible counterfeits, but there is no policy not to accept bills in $50, $100, or other denominations."

The short-lived rule, while surprising to some Americans, drew scant attention among Panamanians. Panama's banks, grocery stores, restaurants and theaters are already so attuned to the counterfeiting problem that many refuse to accept $50 and $100 bills.

Sign in to cash bills

Among the establishments that still accept them, cashiers typically require the bill holder to present a photo ID, which is photocopied, and the bill holders must sign a registry containing each note's serial number.

The main reason for such precautions is the extraordinary quality of the bogus notes being exported from Colombia, which makes them almost indistinguishable from the real thing for all but expert eyes.

"The U.S. counterfeit currency being produced in Colombia is of a very high quality," the U.S. Embassy official in Bogotá said. "It's remarkable, especially when you take into account the archaic machinery they're using - equipment that hasn't been used in the United States for 25 years."

Mr. Otalora said most counterfeit operations are family-run businesses consisting of three to four people.

"They are very secretive. The two most sensitive jobs are the lithographer and the touch-up artist," he said. "When they are on a job, they work night and day, never once stepping outside - even for food."

The artist is charged with copying the intricate details of a dollar - such as its microprinting and fine-line patterns - that designers at the U.S. Mint devised specifically to make the bills resistant to counterfeiting.

The lithographer is in charge of engraving printing plates and overseeing printing so that the dollar's other anti-counterfeit features, such as color-shifting ink, watermarks and its distinctive rough texture, are re-created on the bogus bills.

If authorities receive a tip that a bogus printing operation is under way in a certain neighborhood, Mike the counterfeit-sniffing dog is so sensitive to the smell of ink and printing chemicals that he can lead police directly to the counterfeiters' doorstep.

In a sophisticated operation, Mr. Otalora added, counterfeiters will purchase low-value currencies from other nations such as Venezuela, Ecuador or Iraq, bleach the bills, then print over them with the dollar image.

The Venezuelan bolívar and Iraqi dinar, two of the most popular bills for bleaching, already come with a security strip embedded in the bills, making them more user-friendly in counterfeiting operations.

Officials say Cali became a center of counterfeiting activity about 20 years ago, around the time Colombia's two major drug cartels - in Cali and Medellín - were beginning to dominate the world's cocaine trade.

Artists and printers honed their specialties after being hired by the drug cartels to fabricate all kinds of fake documents - identification cards, diplomas, passports, visas and sales receipts that helped traffickers disguise their identities and made their drug enterprises blend in more easily with legitimate commerce.

Smuggling routes

Today, the export routes used by traffickers to smuggle drugs from Colombia also serve as popular routes for smuggling fake dollars. Evidence is surfacing that Europe's new currency, the euro, also is a target of Colombian counterfeiters.

The counterfeiters will have their work cut out for them, the U.S. Embassy official added. "The euro has more than 70 different security characteristics that make it harder to counterfeit. The U.S. dollar has far fewer security features. It's one of the easiest currencies to counterfeit."

The U.S. government is prodding Colombia to toughen its anti-counterfeiting laws, which currently punish only the people captured in the act of manufacturing fake currency.

Counterfeiters receive a mandatory six-year prison sentence. But Colombia's Constitutional Court has ruled that possession and distribution of counterfeit currency - regardless of the amount - does not constitute a jailing offense.

Last December, U.S. and Colombian authorities seized $41 million in counterfeit dollars from two people in Bogotá. "They were out in six hours," the U.S. Embassy official said.

In another case, a woman was detained before boarding a plane to travel to Miami and Houston with $290,000 in bogus bills.

"She was charged and had to pay a fine, but she was out before we could finish the paperwork," the U.S. official said. "That's what we're fighting against here, the fact that the law doesn't have any teeth."

SO that would make it the "OLD" Dinar
Cheers!
DayDream

That was fast DayDream.

The way I heard this is that the US has allowed this Big Companies ( Future Foriegn and Domestic) to hire these Mercenaries (No Concience Bad Guy for hire) to take out the Militants (The other Bad guy). In order to protect their Investments. This can also work against the ones that first hired them. Remeber a Mercenarie has no concience. So if the other offers more than the first that hired them will then loose again. So the arrangements have to be very high in $$$$$ for it to work-out.

Originally Posted by Justpraying

BBC NEWS | UK | Security firms 'abusing Iraqis'




Security firms 'abusing Iraqis'
Roadside bomb in Baqouba
Security problems have meant private firms are in demand
Private security firms operating in Iraq are committing human rights abuses, a charity has claimed.

A report by War on Want says no prosecutions have been brought despite hundreds of complaints of abuse.

And the charity is calling on the government to introduce legislation to ban private security in war zones.

Lt Col Tim Spicer, whose Aegis security firm operates in Iraq, said they worked under "very strict rules" and could be prosecuted if they did anything wrong.

'Huge profits'

War on Want claims UK ministers are increasingly using private security firms with a total of 48,000 employees in Iraq - six to every British soldier.

John Hilary, the group's campaigns and policy director, said the Iraq war "has allowed British mercenaries to reap huge profits".


Regulation would add clarity to what people can and can't do
Lt Col Tim Spicer
Aegis

"But the government has failed to enact laws to punish their human rights abuses, including firing on Iraqi civilians.

"How can Tony Blair hope to restore peace and security in Iraq while allowing mercenary armies to operate completely outside the law?

"We call on the government to introduce tough legislation as a matter of urgency to ban the use of mercenaries in these conflict situations."

The report is published on the opening day of the first annual conference of the British Association of Private Security Companies in London.

Dispel myths

Col Spicer said it was "completely inaccurate" to suggest that security firms operated outside the law.

He said: "If a British or US citizen - or a citizen of any other country - committed an offence, it is perfectly possible for the government of that country to implement a prosecution against them."

But he said he supported proper regulation of the industry because it would "dispel a lot of the myths and make the situation much clearer".

"It would add clarity to what people can and can't do and where they stand with regard to the law."

Earlier this year the US army launched an inquiry after a video posted on the internet showed an Aegis Defence Services contractor firing at civilian cars in Iraq.

But it said no charges should follow and an investigation by Aegis found that the incident was within the rules on the use of force by civilian personnel.