Hezbollah Countefeiting (?)

This story is wooshing through the tubes, and has been for a while, but I stayed away because I don't think it's been really proven.

I think Hezbollah (or rather, its patron, Iran) is counterfeiting bills, probably through cooperation with the world's best forgers, the North Korean lunatic government.

But these pictures, alas, don't seem to prove that.

Sticky Notes caught it first, I believe.

Commoner Sense notes the seal over the denomination seems to be off, as compared to genuine bills.

Allah checks his own $100 bills and so do readers, however, and they find the seal actually varies in position on (assumedly) real bills.

One good question remains-- why are bills from five years ago (according to the Treasury Secretary's signature which appears on them) so crisp?

It's a good question, but not necessarily a damning one; governments hoard US currency, and many only leak it out for emergency situations, like the need to murder Jews and stage pictures of Hezbollah acting as Robin Hood for the poor people of Lebanon.

I don't expect that looking at the signatures is going to amount to much. Counterfeiters just Xerox (or whatever) the signature; they ain't drawing it freehand. So I imagine the signatures will turn out to be perfect, and any pictures suggesting differently are just catching them at bad angles or whatnot.

I'd imagine that any proof of counterfeiting would come via checking out the more difficult-to-fake anti-counterfeiting measures, like the watermark or little plastic thread running through the bills (and, actually, the North Koreans are so good at this they probably can do a decent job of faking those, too).

I really don't think that a look at the face of a bill will show anything other than a perfect copy of a $100 bill. US criminals can get this much right; I expect foreign governments to do much better.

posted by Ace at 12:09 PM

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