The following article is from a site we follow that keeps us informed about the goings on here. We are also thinking seriously of an Amazon jungle adventure next August when it cools off a bit. Several recommendations of lodges with wood floors, thatched roofs and mosquito nets to sleep under await us along with boat trips and wildlife viewing. We have battery powered UV sterilizers to immerse in any glass of water to take with us. Good we also got our Yellow Fever shots at the MTC before we left. I would have thought the food we were served by BYU Food Services in the MTC would have built up our immune systems and armored us against a number of tropical maladies as well.
Peru is the world’s counterfeit capital
LivinginPeru.com
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| Peruvian police fraud unit has seized US$33 million since 2009. (Photo: Reuters/Pilar Olivares ) |
"Approximately $33 million has been seized in Peru since 2009, which is a substantial number," Jenkins told TIME Lima’s correspondent, Lucien Chauvin, 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 an officer who by law cannot make his identity known.
Chauvin reports that the largest single haul so far took place in early September, when police officers raided a printing press in Lima's San Juan de Lurigancho district, in the eastern part of the city.
While the house had been under surveillance for some time, officers were stunned to discover the extent of the operation. The final tally of the six different currencies produced was just above $27 million.
Fake U.S. $100 bills accounted for nearly one-third of the total, while euros accounted for $4 million. The rest of the bills were Bolivian, Chilean, Peruvian and Venezuelan currencies.
A month earlier, agents had run a sting operation that netted $1 million. The drop-off point was the food court at an upscale Lima shopping center built into cliffs overlooking the ocean.
The counterfeiters agreed to sell each $100 bill for $5 to an undercover agent. The three people arrested had initially agreed to sell $3 million in fake bills.
About 20 illegal printing presses have been dismantled in Lima, each capable of turning out mass amounts of bills.
Operations in Peru continue to use traditional printing techniques, with offset printers — the principal tool of the trade — churning out large numbers of scrip. Nearly all of the major busts have occurred in San Juan de Lurigancho, Lima's largest district (with more than 1 million people), where it is easy to set up shop behind a garage door and go unnoticed.
"Overseas operations tend to be more organized than in the United States. They are using printing presses that allow them to print higher volumes," says Jenkins.
In the past few months, Peruvian police have stopped people and parcels with fake U.S. bills heading to Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Venezuela and, of course, the U.S. Along the way, they have come across a vast array of methods, some quite creative, to get fake bills out of Peru.
They have stopped passengers boarding flights to the U.S. with dollars stuffed into their shoes and have routinely found packages filled with freshly made dollars being sent through the local postal service or via international couriers.
One raid discovered counterfeit bills sewn into stuffed animals destined for Ecuador, which uses the U.S. dollar as its official currency; another found bills hidden in false bottoms of baby cribs. Those bills were going to Central America.
"We have been successful in breaking up several important counterfeit operations, but they are always coming up with new ways to smuggle bills," says a member of the Peruvian police's fraud unit.
What kind of punishment do counterfeiters face? The law is relatively benign when it comes to the crime. First-time offenders may be sentenced to three years in prison, but it is unlikely for them to end up behind bars. Repeat offenders may get sentences as long as six years, but they can be out in two years thanks to a law that benefits nonviolent offenders.
A team of Peruvian lawyers at the Lima Bar Association has been looking at the issue, working on draft legislation that will be submitted to Congress to change the way counterfeiting is dealt with in the criminal code.
"There needs to be more control, and sentences need to be dissuasive. This is not about having lax laws or applying an iron fist but having a penalty that is just and fits the crime," says José Antonio Ñique, president of the Bar Association.
"There are great artists in this country, but some of them are using their talents for counterfeiting. Unfortunately for us, they are quite good at what they do."
The U.S. has a task force operating in Peru even though the Secret Service does not have a permanent office in the country. The closest is in Colombia, which was the counterfeit capital of the world until a joint U.S.-Colombian group helped stanch production.
Jenkins credits the task force and the Peruvian units involved with eliminating a huge chunk of fake cash destined for the U.S.
Says Jenkins: "Our ultimate goal is to get the counterfeit plants and seize counterfeit currency before it can leave the country, which is what we have been successfully doing in Peru."
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