WASHINGTON – When the crackpot North Korean regime hasn’t been secretly building a nuclear bomb, it has been quietly manufacturing millions worth of fake $100 bills, then smuggling them into the West.
“They’re basically turning out $100 bills the way Toyota turns out Camrys,” said Asia expert Ted Galen Carpenter, of the Cato Institute.
The United States has recovered $48 million worth of $100 “supernotes” traced to North Korea since 1989, according to a government official. The actual amount could be much higher.
U.S. officials have seized the fake bills from North Korean diplomats traveling the globe, and federal agents have seized more than $3 million worth from ships arriving in Newark.