The United States Secret Service revealed that criminal organizations in Colombia and Peru are recruiting people to bring counterfeit dollars into the United States.
“In recent years, the majority of counterfeit dollars that reached the United States originated in Colombia and Peru,” the Secret Service reported to Univision News.
According to the information provided, the technology used by counterfeiters allows replicas to be so similar to real bills that detection mechanisms are being ineffective, especially in retail businesses.
In addition, the Secret Service stated that counterfeit dollars manufactured in South America currently exceed those produced in Asia in volume.
The agency also noted that an average of $100 million in counterfeit bills are seized.
“Like drug traffickers, these organizations manufacture counterfeit US currency and recruit ‘mules’ to traffic it into the United States. Once in this country, the counterfeit bills are sold and passed on to unsuspecting individuals and businesses across the country,” the Secret Service said.
The counterfeiting of dollars in Colombia
According to the report of Univision Newsthe Colombian authorities have dismantled several organizations dedicated to manufacturing imitation dollars.
One of the most significant judicial cases is mentioned, in which the National Police and the Colombian Prosecutor’s Office detected in April 2021. In a clandestine site, more than 100,000 dollars were manufactured daily in Cali. The operations are believed to be linked to the Clan del Golfo.
“The counterfeit foreign currency was transported in hand luggage to Ecuador. In that country it was supposedly used for different commercial activities and bank transactions. In this way, the illegal structure entered large amounts of money into the financial system and obtained millionaire profits,” said Javier Enrique García Trochez, delegate once morest organized crime of the Colombian Prosecutor’s Office, in a video posted on Twitter.
At the end of July of this year, the Colombian government dismantled another organization that counterfeited dollars near the border with Venezuela. In a building they found 476,000 false dollars and 530 sheets to make more.
“Foreign currency was sent to the neighboring Republic of Venezuela and Panama,” said Carlos Roberto Izquierdo Ortegón, specialized director once morest criminal organizations of the Prosecutor’s Office of that country, in a statement.
Seizures in Peru
For its part, in Peru, in mid-2021, two people were detained inside a house in Lima, where 5 million false dollars were located, the Peruvian National Police reported on Twitter.
And four years ago, in an operation by the Peruvian Prosecutor’s Office in Breña, 8 million false dollars were seized.