[Non-Sequitur]

I sort of dismiss the CIA theory because of the likely consequences if such a plot were discovered.

I think it just has been. McClatchy has just blown it out of the water.

You can mark genuine currency.

Which really is what they're doing here. Creating genuine currency with a specific, deliberate, almost indetectable flaw. An extra stroke on the Independence Hall steeple. Missing ink splotches that are on bills circulated by the treasury.

What things of value would the CIA exchange for the purported counterfeit currency?

If you create a bill with a deliberately created alteration from the genuine $100, and then route them through a specific channel, say Syria for the sake of arguement. If those bills start showing up in North Korea and Venezuela and Iraq haven't you just traced lines of contact between those locations?

It is an absolutely brilliant scheme, if you stop and think about it. One almost impossible to detect by those you're tracking. And, unfortunately, one which probably has just been compromised.

[spetznaz]

If you create a bill with a deliberately created alteration from the genuine $100, and then route them through a specific channel, say Syria for the sake of arguement. If those bills start showing up in North Korea and Venezuela and Iraq haven't you just traced lines of contact between those locations?

Question: Wouldn't the CIA already know the lines of contact between those nations? That is information that could be garnered (and easily so) using far less convoluted means.