ATHENS – It’s time to answer questions about North Korea’s long-reported production and laundering of high-quality counterfeit US $100 notes. There’s a good opportunity at hand: an unusual meeting this week in New York between senior US and North Korean officials. One of its purposes is to reopen talks about Pyongyang’s alleged illicit financial operations.

Back in 1976, Pyongyang purchased from a specialized Swiss firm a sophisticated intaglio (high-pressure) press for printing currency. At the time, it was identical to the presses used by the US Treasury’s Bureau of Engraving and Printing to turn out hundreds of millions of dollars in genuine greenbacks annually (and is thought to be still highly similar).

After nearly a decade’s delay, high-quality counterfeit intaglio-printed $100 bank notes with only microscopic flaws – dubbed “Supernotes” by bankers and currency buffs – were spotted and seized, first in the Philippines, then in Hong Kong, Thailand, and finally, in the early-1990s, in Europe and the Americas. Read Full Story

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