Time Magazine - Peru is World's Counterfeit Currency Capital

In an interesting Nov 25th article in Time Magazine, author Lucien Chauvin describes how Peru has become the leading supplier of counterfeit currency in the world. 

In an interview with the U.S. special agent in charge of the Secret Service's Criminal Investigative Division, Time was told that "Approximately $33 million has been seized in Peru since 2009, which is a substantial number.."

The same article quotes the Peruvian police's fraud unit as confirming that "what has been seized in the past two years represents only a fraction ...... being pumped out by clandestine printing presses".

This is not news to us here at Fraud Fighter. In a June 14th article in this blog, we wrote that a flood of Peruvian notes had been seen working its way up the Eastern seabord of the United States.  In that posting, we described how discerning businesses could detect these fakes.

The challenging part of detecting the Peruvian counterfeits is that, just like the U.S. Bureau of Printing and Engraving (BEP), the bad-guys in Peru are using "heavy offset printers" which utilize many of the same processes and techniques that the BEP uses.  Thus, even detailed individual examination of these notes may prove fruitless, since visible security features - such as microprinting, watermarks and color shifting ink - are present in these high-quality "supernote" counterfeits.

These "Peruvian Supernotes" are even capable of fooling some of the more basic electronic currency detectors which look only at basic security features.  What is needed to detect these and other high-end counterfeits are devices that read the Machine-Readable Characters (MRC) printed in magnetic, infra red and ultraviolet inks.

Want to learn more?  Just give as a call or write....