Federal authorities announced yesterday that five people, including a Frenchman and a citizen of the Ivory Coast, were arrested for attempting to pass counterfeit financial instruments worth $125 billion.
The Secret Service has a dual mission to protect the president and to police counterfeiting and financial fraud.
FinCEN alleges that for 20 years Banco Delta Asia has been providing "financial services", including circulating counterfeit money and laundering suspicious cash deposits, to North Korean firms linked to the smuggling of drugs, fake tobacco and precious metals.
U.S. Secret Service, federal law-enforcement agency within the United States Department of Homeland Security tasked with the criminal investigation of counterfeiting and other financial crimes.
As a concession to entice North Korea back to the talks, the United States agreed to discuss the financial restrictions arising from the counterfeiting issue, a gesture that has been criticized inside and outside the administration.
There you can find exhibits on the history of money (a 60-pound gold bar, counterfeit notes), the financial markets in America (vintage bond coupons, an old ticker machine) and the women of Wall Street (the desk of Isabel Benham, a financial analyst and female Wall Street pioneer).
She received international honors for her law enforcement initiatives targeting counterfeit goods and financial crimes.
Larry Felix, the former director of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, told me that anti-counterfeit measures "don't make much sense from a direct financial perspective," since the cost of preventing counterfeiting is much greater than the infinitesimal loss caused by fake bills.
This time, however, the authorities hope for more success by focussing on financial crimes, such as money laundering, counterfeiting, tax evasion and fraud.
The financial accounts used to sell the counterfeit goods were restrained as well.
