Currency

Folks,

I carry HK$100 in my wallet for the pleasure of carrying a stable, solid
currency. It is so because it is issued by private companies, just as we
once had in USA. Indeed, the legal fiction is the Federal Reserve Board is a
private bank, so strong was once the American aversion to government having
anything to do with currency.

The Europeans have crafted a disaster in the Euro, and here is just one more
example of he problems mounting for that currency:

By NIC CECIL
Political Reporter

EUROPE is to be flooded with a tidal wave of fake
euro
notes in the biggest money scam ever, crime
experts
warned last night.

Gangsters from Italy, Russia, the Balkans and
Syria are
poised to cash in as the single currency turns the
Continent into a gangsters' paradise.

The enormous sting could potentially see up to
£210
BILLION of forged and laundered notes and coins
circulating in euroland.

Master criminals will use two methods to make
fortunes
when the euro becomes the official currency of 12
countries including Germany and France on January
1,
2002.

They will print near-perfect counterfeit euro
notes that
their lackeys will exchange at bars, restaurants
and
shops while punters are still adjusting to the
look and
feel of the new currency.

Gangsters will also exchange phoney marks and
francs
for euros in hard-pressed banks amid mayhem caused
by millions of citizens queuing to swap their old
money.

The forgery boom will also trigger a surge of
illegal
drugs, guns, stolen cars and counterfeit goods
being
peddled across Europe as gangs rush to spend their
profits.

Mark Tantam, financial crime specialist at
accountants
Deloitte & Touche, said last night: "The advent
of the
euro is the biggest shot in the arm for organised
crime
since the sale of alcohol was outlawed in the US.

"It isn't surprising that - according to Europol
- Russian,
Italian and Balkan crime syndicates are now
intending
to drop the 100-dollar US note as their currency
of
choice in favour of the euro next year."

US author Jeffrey Robinson, who wrote The
Laundrymen
book about counterfeiting, branded euroland
politicians
the "morons of Brussels" for allowing a 500-euro
note
to be printed - the equivalent to £315.

He stressed this would allow criminals to put
£1million in
euros into a single briefcase, making it much
easier to
move "dirty money" around in order to launder it.

Mr Robinson said: "It's the height of insanity
for law
enforcement. There will be tidal waves of
counterfeit
euros. It will be a Disneyland for organised
crime."




Thu Aug 30, 2001 8:16 am

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