Peru is now the number one source of counterfeited U.S. dollars, pumping out more than $103 million in phony money over the past decade.
Peru has surpassed Colombia for most American money counterfeited in a country, the U.N. estimated.
During a recent raid, police were astonished by the high-tech equipment and meticulous methods counterfeiters used to print thousands of bills just outside of Lima.
One 13-year-old boy was arrested on the street with a knapsack holding $700,000 in fake U.S. dollars and euros that was given to him by a fellow colleague. The young boy took police to a house nearby where he and his co-conspirators worked on fabricating fake cash.
"It's a very good note," one Secret Service officer at the U.S. Embassy told AP on grounds of anonymity. "They use offset, huge machines that are used for regular printing of newspapers, or flyers. Once a note is printed they will throw five people [on it] and do little things, little touches that add to the quality."
The U.S. Secret Service announced that they'd opened an office in the capital city of Lima in 2012 to aid with arrests of over 50 people on counterfeiting charges, the Associated Press reported.
According to an investigator working in the chief of Peruvian police's fraud division, the process is lengthy and laborious, but can reap earnings of more than 20 percent for each counterfeiter.
First, forgers use such programs as Corel Draw of Microsoft Office to design the notes. Then, using photolithography, workers etch metal plates and offset printing. Next, using varnish, the counterfeiters brush a sheet of bills that are then cut into singular dollars. Each security strip is carefully placed in the fibers of the bill, glued and applied with syringes. Rollers encased in coarse fabric massage the bills to give them a rougher feeling. Finally, the notes are sanded down.
The investigator reported that using this method produces about $300,000 worth of counterfeit notes in four or five days.
At this point, the Secret Service officer stated, making fake money is more profitable than producing and transporting cocaine-another highly profitable, illegal practice often employed in Peru.
Because cocaine cultivation requires high overhead, transport and processing, it seems the lesser of two evils is to produce fake notes to earn money. Plus, drug trafficking punishments are far more severe than indictments for counterfeiting.
But the investigator says that fake money producers pose an equal threat when compared to other traffickers, because the commodity they make is becoming less and less traceable.
"The day they get it and perfect the finish a bit more, [their bills] will go undetected," he stated.
