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NGC has identified and confirmed that a counterfeit replica of its holder has been produced. At first appearance, the holder resembles the NGC holder and its respective brand marks. Upon inspection, variations in the holder, label and hologram make them easily discernible from authentic NGC-certified coins. This announcement includes diagnostic information to identify counterfeit holders.

The holder has been seen housing counterfeit dollar or foreign crown size coins. While the enclosed coins are also counterfeit, the label information matches the coin type enclosed. The label information is copied from actual NGC certification labels, and the certification information therefore will match the NGC database. Most frequently Trade Dollars and Bust Dollars are found, although, Flowing Hair Dollars, and foreign coins have also been seen. A range of grades is also represented.

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A man responsible for making 14million fake £1 coins is starting a five-year jail sentence. Police said the coin-making operation was one of the biggest they had ever seen.

Marcus Glindon, 37, ran the counterfeiting scam from a workshop on an industrial estate after losing his job as an engineer. Despite the scale of the forging operation - which earned Glindon £300,000 - police said his lifestyle showed no “signs of wealth”.

Officers who searched his workshop in Enfield, North London, discovered enough machinery for the large-scale manufacture of fake coins. There were also copies of the dyes used to imprint legitimate £1 coins.

Detectives arrested Glindon, from nearby Edmonton, and he admitted he had been producing the fake money for seven years.

The father of two said that he had worked alone for most of that time, under the orders of two men he knew only as “Tom” and “John”. They would deliver materials to his workshop, which he would use to produce both completed and blank coins. (more…)

By David Yates for the Southeast Texas Record

Austin-based U.S Money Reserve, Inc. is pursuing a permanent injunction against a band of former employees, who formed their own coin company by allegedly stealing the company’s consumer accounts.

U.S Money Reserve, doing business as United States Rare Coin & Bullion Reserve (USRCB), filed its suit, USRCB vs. United States Money Exchange et al, earlier this month.

On Nov. 13 Judge Bob Wortham, 58th Judicial District, granted a temporary injunction. Two weeks later, on Nov.29 a hearing was held for a permanent injunction. At press time no decision had been reached.

The suit names as defendants Cecil Roberts, individually and doing business as United States Money Exchange; Jason Braquet and Ed Seymour, individually and doing business as JTB Coins; Chad Poole, Terry Finley and Bill Truman. (more…)

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