customs officers seized more than 12 hundred grams of heroin; more than two pounds. All of it, 100 capsules, seized off a passenger from Ghana.
2
Apr
A DEVASTATED girlfriend gave a terrifying account of the “horrendous” effects of drugs – after her boyfriend died in front of her after secretly snorting cocaine at her home.
Former high-flying Fletchers Bakeries manager Scott Wallace was killed by an epileptic fit caused by sniffing the Class A drug in the toilet at his girlfriend’s house in South Yorkshire.
An inquest heard the former bodybuilder, aged 42, thrashed around for 10 minutes as horrified girlfriend Nadine Beck tried desperately to restrain him before he turned ‘purply-blue’ and fell unconscious.
My two bits: I think it is obvious that the us government is producing the super note as a means to track terrorist, drug activity, and to have a reason to shut down foreign economies. It is inconceivable that these notes could be produced by anyone else.
There is much that is odd about supernotes. Banknote specialist Klaus W. Bender points out that experts regard the print quality as “simply superb.” In some ways, Bender continues, “the supernotes are even better than the authentic 100-dollar bills of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Under the microscope, for example, the supernote shows an especially fine execution of lines on the facing side, which cannot be found on the real note. The complicated seal of the Department of the Treasury on the facing side is copied with absolute perfection, but just below it, one finds in the banknote numbering a marking compound that should not be there. And then, missing from this excellently copied supernote, of all things, are the magnetic and infrared security features that would prevent banknote examining systems from bouncing it. Every surveillance device of an American bank or the Fed recognizes the supernote immediately as a counterfeit and spits it out. Do the counterfeiters perhaps intend that the supernote be recognized immediately in the United States?”45 A report issued by the Swiss police concurs that the makers of the supernote seem to have deliberately introduced subtle errors into the process. Extra strokes have been added. When placed under ultraviolet or infrared light, stripes can be seen or numbers vanish on supernotes.
The most perplexing aspect of supernote production is their low quantity. By 2006, the Secret Service had seized $50 million in supernotes, an average of just $2.8 million per year since the first one was discovered. And since supernotes are usually detected the moment they enter the international banking system, the total quantity produced is probably not significantly higher. Supernotes make up a small percentage of the total counterfeit dollars in circulation. “To provide a point of reference,” said Michael Merritt of the U.S. Secret Service, “during fiscal year 2005, the Secret Service seized over $113 million in counterfeit U.S. currency.” Not only is the amount of supernotes small relative to less sophisticated counterfeits, but it is insignificant compared to the $760 billion in genuine U.S. currency in circulation.
The Swiss police observe, “What defies logic is the limited, or even controlled, amount of ‘exclusive’ fakes that have appeared over the years. The organization could easily circulate tenfold that amount without raising suspicions.” Yet a printing press “like the one in North Korea can produce $50 million worth of bills in a few hours.”48 During the 1970s, Giori replaced its standard model printers in a phased approach with its new “Super” series. The standard model was capable of printing three thousand sheets per hour. Each sheet held 32 notes. If North Korea purchased one of the older standard models, it would have taken just over five hours to produce $50 million. And $2.8 million a year would have required running the press for less than half an hour. Production would be done for the year. The newer Orlof press can spew out 12,000 sheets per hour, each sheet containing sixty notes. Only two and a half minutes would be needed to generate $2.8 million in notes.49 Clearly, supernotes are being produced for a very specific purpose.
Also difficult to explain is the speed with which supernotes have kept pace with the numerous modifications made to U.S. engraving plates since 1989. This in itself is a prohibitively expensive process. German banknote specialist Klaus W. Bender remarks, “The counterfeiters immediately implemented each and every change to the 100-dollar bill. The pace at which they put out their revised fake notes made observers even wonder whether they had access to information concerning to the speed with which the Fed replaced its old notes.” The microprint in U.S. currency sometimes measures only 1/42,000 of an inch. “This microprint is considered unique in the world of banknotes. It was reproduced so perfectly by the counterfeiters that even under a microscope no difference is distinguishable. The gravure of an intaglio printing plate requires many months of hard work and eats up many tens of thousands of dollars per plate. For security reasons, the craft is always taught in-house only. So where do the counterfeiters get this specialized knowledge?”
Just who is producing supernotes? Initially, the U.S. accused Iran and Syria, even though the latter country did not have a banknote press of its own. Then North Korea was identified as the culprit. While it cannot be ruled out that North Korea is producing supernotes, that prospect raises the question of motive. By the reckoning of the U.S. Secret Service, supernotes pose a low threat, given the small amounts in circulation and the preponderant distribution outside of U.S. borders. Furthermore, supernotes are identified the moment they hit the U.S. banking system, which would seem to rule out the motivation of “economic warfare” that has been attributed to North Korea.
Nor does the production of supernotes make sense as a profit-making venture. A single new Giori printing machine now costs more than the $50 million in supernotes found so far. To give some idea of the expense, when Nigeria opened its second printing plant in Abuja, it cost more than $135 million, and that does not take into account property costs. A plant to produce the type of paper used in supernotes is similarly expensive and large quantities of the proper type of paper would have to be manufactured to avoid ongoing financial loss. OVI ink is also quite expensive, even more so since most of the ink is lost when the printing plates are wiped clean just before pressing the paper. Factor in the cost of keeping up with multiple changes to the engravings, and no sane individual would undertake such a daunting operation to produce limited quantities with an eye to making a profit.
U.S. officials like to point out that they have seen no evidence that any nation other than North Korea is producing supernotes. True enough, but neither is there any evidence that North Korea is doing so. By all accounts, such an operation would require the resources of a government or governmental organization. Klaus W. Bender suggests one intriguing possibility. “One notices that the supernotes always turn up in small, well-measured quantities, as though their volume were controlled.” This is not how normal counterfeiters behave. “They want to unload their hot goods as quickly as possible. Further, experts believe they have determined that the supernotes regularly crop up in those regions in which U.S. foreign policy is just encountering problems: the Near and Middle East, central African countries, and especially East Africa. Active in these places are opposition politicians, rebelling tribes, and private armies of diverse warlords doing the bidding of the CIA. Could it be that they are being paid for their services in counterfeit dollar notes?” Bender posits that such groups might use the money to purchase arms abroad, including from North Korea, and that from North Korea the money would make its way back to Western nations. “It is not clear how much the U.S. Secret Service knows itself, or is allowed to know.” The CIA is said to have a printing plant located north of Washington, DC, in which the same Giori printing presses are installed that are used in the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.
It has also been suggested that limited quantities of counterfeit notes are being introduced into the market in such a way as to assist law enforcement agencies in tracking the movement of funds among criminal and terrorist organizations. Everything is speculation at this point in time, but of all the various scenarios that have been suggested, it is this last one that is the most plausible. It is the only one where all of the pieces fit together into a coherent whole.
About the author:
Gregory Elich is on the Board of Directors of the Jasenovac Research Institute and on the Advisory Board of the Korea Truth Commission. He is the author of the book Strange Liberators: Militarism, Mayhem, and the Pursuit of Profit.
More info on the cia producing the super note: http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/46786/more_on_(the_cia’s)_counterfeit_%22supernotes%22/
and even more: http://xiaodongpeople.blogspot.com/2008/01/mysterious-100-supernote-counterfeit.html
OTTAWA — Illegal drugs seized at the border - including hash, methadone and steroids - are winding up in landfills because Canada’s border guards don’t know they’re supposed to be destroyed.
That’s among the findings of a scathing report into sloppy security at government warehouses, where some $400 million of seized contraband is sent each year by the Canada Border Services Agency.
“Security and access control to storage facilities were below standard and storage requirements for drugs, firearms and ammunition were not consistently met,” says the internal audit.
“Inventory control was inadequate.”
Investigators examined supposedly secure facilities - known as Queen’s warehouses or bond rooms - in the province of Quebec, and in the Toronto and Windsor, Ont., regions, where many of the 30,000 border seizures each year are made.
More than half of all seizures are drugs, alcohol and tobacco. The rest includes child pornography, firearms, ammunition and jewelry. The report notes that seized items are rarely suitable for sale on the government’s online auction site, creating a continuing storage and disposal challenge.
The audit, completed last month, cites a long litany of shoddy security practices for the 68 facilities inspected, at airports, land border crossings and postal plants.
“Physical security was below standard for half of the interior facilities and all of the exterior facilities,” the report says.
For example, 70 per cent of the warehouses or bond rooms were not continuously monitored, whether by guards, cameras or motion detectors.
And at 15 facilities, the agency did not control access by non-government persons. Twenty-three of the sites had no inventory control whatsoever.
Seized drugs were a particular problem: paperwork was missing, there were no safes for storage at most facilities, and many drugs were kept in storage far too long, for years in some cases.
Government policy requires the border agency to turn over most prohibited drugs to the RCMP for eventual incineration - but workers were unaware of the requirement, says the report.
“Employees working in Queen’s warehouses … did not know they should not destroy these drugs.”
Destruction, in most cases, involved tossing pills and bags of dope into the garbage for a trip to the local landfill.
Investigators noted that court cases could be compromised by the sloppy storage, tracking and inventory of seized goods - damaging the “sterility of the chain of custody,” which guards against the contamination or tampering of evidence.
A 1998 internal audit of the warehouses found strikingly similar weaknesses. And in 2007 the auditor general also raised the alarm.
“We noted poor control over the administration and handling of seized goods, such as alcohol and firearms,” Sheila Fraser reported to Parliament.
“We observed unrestricted access to seizure rooms at two locations.”
Despite earlier commitments to fix those problems, the February audit said there has been “further degradation” of security.
The agency says it has taken measures that over the next year will resolve most of the problems - including a requirement that regions report by this Tuesday on their immediate corrective actions.
The agency declined to say whether any employees had ever been charged with theft in connection with missing contraband, citing the Privacy Act.
Nor did a spokeswoman indicate whether any court cases had been compromised as a result of poor security or inventory controls.
“A thorough review of the areas examined in the audit will be completed over 2009, which will provide further direction on introducing stronger mechanisms for managing goods and improving security at ports of entry,” Tracie LeBlanc said in an email.
28
Mar
LAREDO, Texas, March 28 (Reuters) - Ending years of lax controls, the United States is stepping up checks of vehicles heading into Mexico to stop weapons and cash fueling a drug war south of the border. But local U.S. officials on the border are clamoring for even more help.
full story continues: http://www.reuters.com/article/vcCandidateFeed1/idUSN28271427
28
Mar
Reporting from Popotla, Mexico — Nallely and Heriberto Salgado boarded the Mexican fishing skiff bobbing off the Baja California coast last week and watched warily in the moonlight as 19 other people squeezed onto the vessel designed to carry no more than a dozen.
A smuggler piloting the 25-foot boat promised a short ride before landing on a beach in San Diego.
Full story here: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-smuggling-boats29-2009mar29,0,6958482.story
(03-27) 20:44 PDT San Diego, CA (AP) –
A commercial truck driver from Mexico is behind bars in San Diego after a drug-sniffing dog discovered five tons of marijuana stashed in his tractor-trailer. The stash is worth an estimated $6.5 million.
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman said Friday that the driver was nabbed Wednesday when he tried to get his truck through the cargo inspection station at Otay Mesa.
The driver was registered in the Free Secure Trade program, which allows known low-risk commercial cargoes to be expedited through border inspection.
The driver’s truck was not registered and was sent to a secondary inspection where a Customs and Border Protection drug dog sniffed out the marijuana.
The trucker’s cargo manifest said “toilet paper.”
23
Mar
NEW JERSEY (AP) — Authorities say a Brooklyn man was hauling more than 300 pounds of marijuana when police stopped his van in Woodbridge last week. Norris Sinclair, 45, of Brooklyn was stopped after officers got information that marijuana was being shipped from Los Angeles to New York City, and that a transfer would occur in Woodbridge.
read the whole story here http://www.brooklyneagle.com/categories/category.php?category_id=4&id=27119
23
Mar
Everybody has their price and if you can out do a customs officers salary you can have them in your pocket
Border Patrol agents have a starting salary range of about $35,000 to $45,000. Workers who meet performance standards are bumped up to around $55,000 after two years. Agents can earn an additional 25 percent of their base salaries each year in overtime.
