The counterfeit haul was the largest in Turkey’s history.
A subsequent investigation found that the fake $100 bills were destined for several countries on one continent: Africa.
“Crackdowns on counterfeiting American currency in other parts of the world, by Interpol and U.S. government agencies, have forced the criminals to operate in Africa,” said Davis Kabunya, a Nairobi-based private security consultant who works with law enforcement to track the spread of forged U.S. dollars across the continent.
He told The Epoch Times that Africa offers significant advantages to criminal networks specializing in counterfeit currency.
“There’s no place on Earth where demand for the dollar is higher than Africa. Local currencies have collapsed, which means many countries use American dollars in everyday trade because people trust the dollar,” Mr. Kabunya said.
“In such a context, it’s relatively simple to flood markets with fake dollar bills.
“Also, very few African countries have the technology to detect the forgeries, and the criminals know that even if they’re caught, they’re often able to bribe government officials and police to get them out of trouble.”
“The threat of counterfeit U.S. currency to the financial system of the United States continues to evolve,” it noted.
“Advances in technology, the availability of scanning and printing devices, and the adoption of the U.S. dollar by nations as their legal tender have exacerbated the global threat.”
Several African economies are “dollarized” because of the failures of their local currencies, including Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Zimbabwe, where the greenback is an official currency.
Across the continent, the dollar is accepted in everyday transactions.
“These features make dollars notoriously difficult to copy,” Mr. Thomas said.
But, in Africa, where technology to identify forgeries is largely absent, the criminals don’t need a high degree of sophistication to successfully inject counterfeit dollars into local markets and economies and to receive genuine local currency in return.
“What we’re seeing now is organized crime groups across the world using their technology to produce fake dollars and then smuggling the notes to Africa, where there’s a much better chance of the fakes being laundered,” Mr. Thomas said.
Mr. Kabunya agreed that it’s “easy” to get counterfeit U.S. dollars into most African markets.
“We have a level of unsophistication here that isn’t present in other economies. The criminals often target local markets and small businesses, especially those that engage in cash transactions,” he said.
“Many businesses in the formal and informal economies don’t have the knowledge and the technology necessary to identify counterfeits, so they just accept the notes.”
Mr. Thomas said there are often “serial number discrepancies” on forged notes.
“The color of the dollar bills and low-grade paper is also sometimes a giveaway,” he said.
“But usually these flaws can only be detected by trained law enforcement agents, bigger businesses with screening technology, and those who know what the security features are for authentic notes.
“You can’t expect Joe Soap in the street to spot these forgeries, and what’s more, Africa’s Joe Soap doesn’t want to spot forgeries; he simply wants U.S. greenbacks, so there’s a tendency to ignore suspicions.”
Mr. Kabunya said Africans are also producing counterfeit dollars to a much greater degree than ever before, with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) being a “hotspot.”
“DRC is a great place for organized crime groups to work, because there’s so little governance and law enforcement there, because of all the conflicts going on between official forces and many different rebel groups,” he said.
Trade in valuable minerals “goes hand in hand” with the “ubiquity” of forged dollars, Oluwole Ojewale, an organized crime specialist for Central Africa at the Pretoria, South Africa-based Institute for Security Studies, told The Epoch Times.
Africa, and especially the DRC, possesses vast mineral resources, with most transactions involving precious and rare earth metals such as gold, diamonds, and coltan being done in dollars. Mr. Ojewale said the producers of counterfeit dollar bills in the DRC collaborate with syndicates across Africa.
“They channel the banknotes into the legal economy through mineral trading and other commercial activities,” he said.
“They target unsuspecting people in the informal economy. They offer to exchange fake currency for legitimate currency at a favorable rate.
“The counterfeiters also focus on busy areas and commercial enterprises in neighboring countries such as Rwanda and Uganda.
“They take advantage of porous borders and travel by road to avoid capture. Informal cross-border trade in the war zone in east DRC also enables the crime.”
Mr. Ojewale noted that organized crime networks use fake cash to fund illegal activities, including human trafficking, narcotics and weapons smuggling, and terrorism.
He described the DRC as an “origin, transit, and destination country” for counterfeit dollars.
“The bogus notes are also produced in neighboring countries and easily smuggled into DRC because the country has no borders, to all intents and purposes,” Mr. Ojewale said.
Mr. Kabunya said there’s currently “unprecedented demand” for U.S. dollars in Africa.
“I’ve been investigating counterfeiting rings for 17 years, and I’ve never seen so many; it’s like they’re everywhere,” he said.
“The counterfeit cash is being made in shacks in Nairobi and Lagos, in Johannesburg, but DRC is truly the center of it all at the moment.”
Mr. Kabunya said forgers in the DRC are collaborating with “corrupt” government and law enforcement officials to establish “counterfeiting factories” in cities, towns, and jungles.
“From those bases, the forgeries spread across the continent and even overseas. There’s just so much demand for American dollars and so little faith in African money,” he said.
As the value of African monies collapses, demand for dollars, the world’s most traded currency, spikes, according to professor David Everatt, development economist at Wits University in Johannesburg.
“Global trade is conducted in the currencies of the world’s major economic powers, principally the U.S. dollar,” he said. “Individuals, companies, and governments need dollars to import goods and services and make other payments overseas and to settle debts.”
Most sub-Saharan African currencies continue to weaken against other global trading currencies, such as the British pound and U.S. dollar, continuing a trend that began in 2018 and worsened during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Rabah Arezki, chief economist at the African Development Bank Group.
“This results in the loss of value and purchasing power of local currencies on the continent,” he told The Epoch Times.
The naira and the kwanza lost nearly 40 percent of their value against the U.S. dollar between Dec. 31, 2022, and Sept. 15, 2023.
The report listed other African currencies that fell significantly over the same time frame, including those in South Sudan (33 percent), Burundi (27 percent), the DRC (18 percent), Kenya (16 percent), Zambia and Ghana (12 percent), and Rwanda (11 percent).
“The huge gap between supply and demand for foreign currencies in these countries is a serious issue that’s driving counterfeiting,” Mr. Ojewale said. “As soon as there’s a shortage of foreign exchange, people turn to the black market.”
Another factor leading to shortages of dollars and one that’s also driving the upsurge in counterfeiting, according to economists, is African nations’ reliance on imports.
“Most African countries import much more finished goods than they export,” said Mr. Everatt.
“As a consequence, they need U.S. dollars to pay the international suppliers. This increases demand for foreign exchange and reduces reliance on the local currency.”
He noted that the “dollarization” of African economies contributed substantially to an increase in counterfeiting.
The International Monetary Fund defines dollarization as “the use of foreign currencies as a medium of exchange, store of value, or unit of account,” and says that it’s a “notable feature of financial development under macroeconomically fragile conditions,” especially in sub-Saharan Africa.
“In countries like Sierra Leone, some goods and services are priced in U.S. dollars at stores. That also boosts demand for dollars and lessens demand for the local currency,” Mr. Everatt said.
“[In the DRC,] U.S. dollars are accepted everywhere and used for most major purchases,” Mr. Kabunya said. “The Congolese franc has been abandoned because it lost almost all value when civil war broke out in the 1990s.”
Mr. Everatt said that, as in Zimbabwe, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and other countries, hyperinflation in the DRC resulted in the U.S. dollar being introduced as the legal tender, and about 90 percent of assets in the banking system are denominated in the American currency.
“While African leaders call for a move away from reliance on the U.S. dollar, with some even suggesting a switch to China’s renminbi, the American currency remains the most trusted in Africa,” he said.
Mr. Kabunya said: “China is pushing Africa to de-dollarize, and our leaders often make speeches about reducing reliance on America.
“But let me tell you, their sentiments and geopolitical games aren’t shared by your African in the street.
“Your average African, whether criminal or not, is in love with one currency, and that’s the American greenback, and that love affair isn’t ending soon.”
