How Peru Became the World's Counterfeit Capital

[Judi Lynn]

How Peru Became the World's Counterfeit Capital
By Lucien Chauvin / Lima Thursday, Nov. 25, 20

Back in the 1980s, Peru's government ran the printing presses as an answer to the country's massive economic crisis, but churning out currency only made things worse and hyperinflation topped off at 1.2 million percent by the end of the decade.

The printing presses have returned, but this time it is not the government cranking out bills, and the currency coming out is not necessarily the Peruvian nuevo sol. Some days it is euros, while others it is Venezuelan bolívares fuertes, or Bolivian and Chilean pesos. Most days, however, it is U.S. dollars.

In the past two years, Peru has become the No. 1 distributor of counterfeit currency internationally, according to Kenneth Jenkins, a U.S. special agent in charge of the Secret Service's Criminal Investigative Division. "Approximately $33 million has been seized in Peru since 2009, which is a substantial number," Jenkins told TIME in a telephone interview from Washington.

Officers in the Peruvian police's fraud unit estimate that a much larger sum of phony money is being printed in the country. They say that what has been seized in the past two years represents only a fraction of different bills, including Peruvian currency, being pumped out by clandestine printing presses. "Counterfeit operations have been multiplying for several years now. For every person we arrest, there are probably nine others printing bills," says one officer who, by law, cannot make his identity known.

More:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2032152,00.html