7 ms·

slightly related, but I've always wondered, why don't criminal governments (N Korea, Taliban, ...) make a professional US dollar forgery factory (or another cur

by roshin 3y ago

slightly related, but I've always wondered, why don't criminal governments (N Korea, Taliban, ...) make a professional US dollar forgery factory (or another currency, if some other kind is easy to forge)? It seems to me like a very profitable business.

TinyRick 3y ago
North Korea already does that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar#North_Korea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar#North_Korea
realce 3y ago
Two sources that you might find interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rush_Hour_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rush_Hour_2 :)
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dragonwriter 3y ago
North Korea is known to be a widespread user of high-quality counterfeit US currency (“superdollars”) and widely suspected (and there are defectors who have supported this and described details of different parts of the operation, though their remains some uncertainty about the accounts) of being a major producer of such counterfeits. OTOH, high quality counterfeits are expensive and there is lots of energy directed at identifying counterfeits and, once identified, dealing with the production and distribution (and even if you are a state actor that thinks your production is safe from outside retaliation, the channels you use to benefit from it in interaction with the outside world are generally not), so a literal unlicensed money printing operation is not as much of a metaphorical license to print money as it might naively seem.
- sandworm101 3y ago
  There are also only a handful of companies that sell the equipment for producing real currency. They only do business with governments. North Korea has a government and its own currency. They are perfectly capable turning those legitimate tools to the generation of other currencies.
  - smokel 3y ago
    European bank notes contain a little Europium, a rare-earth element. Ironically, large deposits of minerals that contain it are found in China, the US, and Russia. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europium https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europium
PepperdineG 3y ago
During WWII the Germans had Operation Bernhard, which was very interesting. It was run out of a concentration camp and operated by jewish prisoners. It was a money printing machine for the Germans.
- ProjectArcturis 3y ago
  They made a movie about that, The Counterfeiters.
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bruce511 3y ago
A) they do, but B) cash doesn't scale terribly well. Think a million $ in cash is cool? How do you spend it? You can't really take it to a bank. You can buy a cheap banger (car), but forget wandering into a dealership and dropping 25k in cash. (Apart from anything else, they'd be worried the cash was stolen or counterfeit.) Travelling with it is risky. Flying especially. And in the US there's the danger of confiscation by the police. Everywhere else there's confiscation by the public as well. You can't buy a house. Certainly no shares or most other assets. Hotels, maybe, depending ion the hotel. Nothing too fancy. Groceries sure. Day to day expenses, sure. Just no Amazon. Like I say, cash just doesn't scale well (despite what you see in the movies.)
- IncreasePosts 3y ago
  You don't give millions to one person, you give $30k to 15,000 agents around the world, and that's one percent of your GDP right there.
  - pvg 3y ago
    You probably don't have 15000 'agents' that need $30k in cash and you expose every single one of them to an unnecessary risk if they get caught with fake money. Somewhat similar case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_Nickel_Case https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_Nickel_Case
    - IncreasePosts 3y ago
      I think the entire point of the super dollar is that it is basically impossible to tell from a legitimate $100 bill, save from checking for duplicate/non-existent serial numbers.
  - aeturnum 3y ago
    Counterfeit cash adds risk to your agents. It also increases the chance they'll be tied back to you if they're caught. Also the operation to get them the money is, in itself, an expensive and difficult operation where the people doing the work probably need to be paid in real money. None of those drawbacks mean it's a bad idea - just that it's not simple and ultimately comes back to fundamental questions of value exchange. I.e. Most of the time it costs fewer resources to exchange things for money on the black market than arranging to have extremely high quality forgeries in the hands of your agents.
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by roshin 3y ago

TinyRick 3y ago

North Korea already does that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar#North_Korea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar#North_Korea

realce 3y ago

Two sources that you might find interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rush_Hour_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rush_Hour_2 :)

deleted 3y ago

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dragonwriter 3y ago

North Korea is known to be a widespread user of high-quality counterfeit US currency (“superdollars”) and widely suspected (and there are defectors who have supported this and described details of different parts of the operation, though their remains some uncertainty about the accounts) of being a major producer of such counterfeits. OTOH, high quality counterfeits are expensive and there is lots of energy directed at identifying counterfeits and, once identified, dealing with the production and distribution (and even if you are a state actor that thinks your production is safe from outside retaliation, the channels you use to benefit from it in interaction with the outside world are generally not), so a literal unlicensed money printing operation is not as much of a metaphorical license to print money as it might naively seem.

sandworm101 3y ago
There are also only a handful of companies that sell the equipment for producing real currency. They only do business with governments. North Korea has a government and its own currency. They are perfectly capable turning those legitimate tools to the generation of other currencies.
- smokel 3y ago
  European bank notes contain a little Europium, a rare-earth element. Ironically, large deposits of minerals that contain it are found in China, the US, and Russia. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europium https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europium

PepperdineG 3y ago

During WWII the Germans had Operation Bernhard, which was very interesting. It was run out of a concentration camp and operated by jewish prisoners. It was a money printing machine for the Germans.

ProjectArcturis 3y ago
They made a movie about that, The Counterfeiters.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

bruce511 3y ago

A) they do, but B) cash doesn't scale terribly well. Think a million $ in cash is cool? How do you spend it? You can't really take it to a bank. You can buy a cheap banger (car), but forget wandering into a dealership and dropping 25k in cash. (Apart from anything else, they'd be worried the cash was stolen or counterfeit.) Travelling with it is risky. Flying especially. And in the US there's the danger of confiscation by the police. Everywhere else there's confiscation by the public as well. You can't buy a house. Certainly no shares or most other assets. Hotels, maybe, depending ion the hotel. Nothing too fancy. Groceries sure. Day to day expenses, sure. Just no Amazon. Like I say, cash just doesn't scale well (despite what you see in the movies.)

IncreasePosts 3y ago
You don't give millions to one person, you give $30k to 15,000 agents around the world, and that's one percent of your GDP right there.
- pvg 3y ago
  You probably don't have 15000 'agents' that need $30k in cash and you expose every single one of them to an unnecessary risk if they get caught with fake money. Somewhat similar case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_Nickel_Case https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_Nickel_Case
  - IncreasePosts 3y ago
    I think the entire point of the super dollar is that it is basically impossible to tell from a legitimate $100 bill, save from checking for duplicate/non-existent serial numbers.
- aeturnum 3y ago
  Counterfeit cash adds risk to your agents. It also increases the chance they'll be tied back to you if they're caught. Also the operation to get them the money is, in itself, an expensive and difficult operation where the people doing the work probably need to be paid in real money. None of those drawbacks mean it's a bad idea - just that it's not simple and ultimately comes back to fundamental questions of value exchange. I.e. Most of the time it costs fewer resources to exchange things for money on the black market than arranging to have extremely high quality forgeries in the hands of your agents.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]