Free Republic

Once the fake money is in your hands, it’s your responsibility—and if you try to use it, you could go to jail for 20 years. This is even the case when the business handing out the counterfeited cash is the U.S. Post Office, as one man in Los Angeles found out. David Larazus’ LA Times column details the odd story of David Lipin, who cashed a postal money order and received eight $100 bills—all of which turned out to be fake. Lipin not only had to eat the loss, but also deal with the police, who said he could have...

GRAND RAPIDS – A Comstock Park man has been charged with criminal copyright infringement for allegedly streaming live sporting events and pay-per-view events on the Internet.

Fake Silver and Gold Flood Global Markets; 100,000 Coins From A Single Counterfeiter! Mac Slavo November 10th, 2011 SHTFplan.com Whether it’s pirated software, poison-infused baby formula, cancer-causing drywall, luxury purses, or fake medicines, if you need a knock-off, China has traditionally been the go-to country, with a counterfeiter always willing to oblige. Now, with precious metals prices on the cusp of possibly the biggest price explosion in centuries, fake gold and silver products are becoming a booming industry say Global Piracy & Counterfeiting Consultants: We have read about one Chinese counterfeiter openly bragging about producing 100,000 fake U.S. Silver Dollars...

Boeing military products may contain counterfeit Chinese parts Allegations of counterfeit Chinese parts being used in U.S. military aircraft are surprising to Frank Houston, senior vice president at Esterline Technologies Corp. in Bellevue, a key supplier of The Boeing Co.’s electronics systems. Some of these parts allegedly were installed on Boeing (NYSE: BA) aircraft. The accusations of counterfeit Chinese parts being used in U.S. defense equipment were raised during a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee Nov. 8, and were widely distributed in the press. According to a story about the hearing in Bloomberg, non-approved Chinese parts have been...

BEIJING - At first, it looks like a sleek Apple store. Sales assistants in blue T-shirts with the company's logo chat to customers. Signs advertising the iPad 2 hang from the white walls. Outside, the famous logo sits next to the words "Apple Store." And that's the clue it's fake. China, long known for producing counterfeit consumer gadgets, software and brand name clothing, has reached a new piracy milestone — fake Apple stores. An American who lives in Kunming in southern Yunnan province said Thursday that she and her husband stumbled on three shops masquerading as bona fide Apple stores...

N. Korea: Forged Notes Lead to Currency and Regime Stability Concerns in the North Forged Notes Lead to Currency and Regime Stability Concerns in the North Security agency orders the apprehension of mastermind of Kim Il-sung image on forged 5,000 won notes 75 thousand to 1 million dollars worth of currency distributed around the regions Money initially laundered in dollars or yuan Market workers quiet as forged rumors of another 'currency reform' spread 2011-05-17 16:29:26 Cho, Sun-ah An NKSIS source reported April 26th, "A special team has been created by order of the Party Central Military Commission to track the...

NOTE The following snippet is a quote: losangeles.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel11/la050911.htm Southern California Man Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison for Convictions in Smuggling Schemes, Including Plot to Bring Surface-to-Air Missiles Into United States LOS ANGELES—A Southern California man was sentenced this morning to 25 years in federal prison after being convicted on a series of federal charges related to schemes to smuggle many items into the United States, including surface-to-air missiles designed to shoot down aircraft. Yi Qing Chen, 49, of Rosemead, California, received the 300-month sentence from United States District Judge Dale S. Fischer. Last October, following a two-week trial, a...

Customs agents at O'Hare International Airport have seized more than 1,700 "high quality" counterfeit driver's licenses that have been shipped from China this year. The licenses were for the states of Illinois, Ohio, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Florida, Georgia, and Pennsylvania, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Most of them were addressed to college students and were apparently ordered online. "Federal, state and local law enforcement agencies are conducting investigations regarding some of the intended recipients," Customs officials said. “Our greatest concern is the ease at which these high quality fakes can be ordered over the Internet." In some...

NEW YORK (AFP) – A dual US-Lebanese citizen has been extradited from Paraguay and charged with supporting Lebanon's Hezbollah militant force, US officials said Friday. Moussa Ali Hamdan, 38, appeared in court in Philadelphia following his extradition and has been charged with providing "material support to Hezbollah, a designated foreign terrorist organization," the federal prosecutor's office in Pennsylvania said in a statement. Hamdan was arrested by Paraguayan authorities June 15 on suspicion of supporting terrorism and was subsequently handed over to US custody. He is accused in the United States on 28 counts including conspiring to supply Hezbollah with proceeds...

Summary Counterfeit coins by the thousands are turning up in Washington state, and authorities are warning coin collectors to be on the lookout for them. Click on link for video

YAKIMA, Wash. — More than 50 demonstrators marched in front of the federal courthouse in downtown Yakima on Tuesday to protest the arrest of 30 illegal immigrants in Ellensburg last week. Most of the demonstrators were students at Ellensburg High School, where some of the suspects’ children attended. The marchers say the arrested people were only trying to support their families by working in the United States. The families will be split up by the arrests, critics say. Charging documents filed in U.S. District Court allege that the defendants used counterfeit identity documents to obtain work.

With the leaders of thousands of different religions and churches attempting to make their beliefs appear authentic, it behooves a person to carefully ascertain truth from error. In fact, many leaders of these faiths may call themselves "Christian" and even attempt to convert Christians into their churches. After all, Jesus Himself said in Matthew 7:15, "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves." This is why John warned the believers in 1 John 4:1 to "believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false...

A client of a major Swiss bank was recently refused access to his physical gold and had to hire attorneys and threaten to expose the bank publicly before finally getting it back in his own hands, according to Jim Rickards of Omnis. “My inference is that that gold was not there,” Rickards told King World News. “The bank had to scramble, go out and find it somewhere before they could make good delivery.” Rickards expects the world will eventually go to a gold standard-backed currency. “To me, the big issue is, is it going to be intelligent or is it...

The Cost of Faking it Published on May 25, 2010 There's a saying that clothes don't make the man, but a lot of times the clothes we wear (accessories and tattoos included) do actually say something about who we are. (If you're famous, it may even happen that the clothes you don't wear say something about who you are). Besides signaling to others, clothes obviously also have an effect on how we feel about ourselves, and as a recent study shows, this sense of self that we derive from certain clothing produces measurable behavior changes. In particular, the study which...

Confiscated bills were used by US multi-millionaires club for decorative purposes and sold as collectors' item Abu Dhabi: Abu Dhabi Police have arrested a man for trying to exchange two $1-million bills at the UAE Central Bank. Abu Dhabi Police said the confiscated $1-million bills were not real currency notes but had been used for decorative purposes by a group called the "International club for multi-millionaires" in the US. Police said the 45-year-old African suspect convinced a European woman that the $1 million bills were genuine and could be exchanged at the UAE Central Bank. He also allegedly offered her...

NORFOLK A Virginia Beach man faces an 18-count federal indictment charging him with trying to smuggle hundreds of credit card holograms into the country from the Middle East. Craig Steven Reynolds, 26, was arraigned Wednesday in U.S. District Court. He pleaded not guilty to the charges and a magistrate judge set an Aug. 17 trial date. Agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Reynolds on April 19 when he tried to retrieve a package containing the holograms, which had arrived from the United Arab Emirates city of Dubai, according to a court affidavit filed by the arresting agent. Reynolds...

A business inadvertently gives you counterfeit money — are you stuck with it? In most cases, yes. But what if that business happens to be a branch of the federal government? Los Angeles resident David Lipin found himself asking this question the other day after he cashed a $1,000 Postal Service money order at a West Hollywood post office. He said the postal worker handed him 10 $20 bills and eight $100 bills. Lipin, 43, said he then stopped at a nearby gas station to fill his tank. He tried to pay with one of his new $100 bills. "The...

UPDATE 1-New US $100 note aims to deter counterfeiters Wed Apr 21, 2010 2:39pm EDT By David Lawder WASHINGTON, April 21 (Reuters) - A newly designed $100 note aims to thwart counterfeiters with advanced security features, top U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve officials said on Wednesday. The "new Benjamins" to be released in February 2011 retain the traditional look of the U.S. currency, with Benjamin Franklin's portrait. They aim to foil counterfeiters with difficult and costly to reproduce features such as a blue three-dimensional security ribbon with alternating images of bells and the number 100 that move and change as...

<p>WASHINGTON – The folks who print America's money have designed a high-tech makeover of the $100 bill. It's part of an effort to stay ahead of counterfeiters as technology becomes more sophisticated and more dollars flow overseas, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says.</p>

Judge rules gospel tracts aren't counterfeit money A judge ruled in favor of a Denton ministry who sued the federal government over the illegal seizure of "million-dollar bill" gospel tracts. In 2006, the U.S. Secret Service confiscated 83 packs of the gospel tracts, which resemble million-dollar bills. The ministry's tracts feature a "million-dollar question" and asks readers, "Will you go to heaven?" The tracts also include a brief test and Bible excerpts. Darrel Rundus, president of the Great News Network ministry, said the Secret Service made the seizure illegally without a search warrant and threatened to arrest a GNN member...

North Korea seems to have suspended the state-sponsored drug trade last year but continues to trade in counterfeit dollar bills and cigarettes, the U.S. State Department claims. The annual International Narcotics Control Strategy Report released by the department on Monday said, "Hard-to-detect fake US$100 notes made only by North Korea turned up in 2008 and 2009 in San Francisco and the South Korean city of Busan, although it was unclear how long the notes had been in circulation," AFP reported.

Let's not mince words here: The entire finance and real-estate "industry" is filled with massive, pernicious fraud, and we now have only one question remaining - will The Government do its lawful and mandated job, that of prosecuting the bad actors, or has it joined with the fraudsters, become one with them, and thus, declare itself as a gang of mobsters rather than a legitimate government? The latter, of course will beg only the question of what should be an ordinary American's response. Let's start with what may be one of the most outrageous yet least-actionable examples: Alan Greenspan. Alan...

Market Street Saloon scammed out of $510 in latest, boldest counterfeit case It was dark, the alcohol was flowing and dozens of Alexander Hamiltons and Andrew Jacksons were making their way into a downtown bar's cash register Friday night. It wasn't until the next day that a manager at the Market Street Saloon realized that someone scammed the business out of $510 by passing bogus $10 and $20 bills. Charleston police said the incident is the most brazen of several counterfeit cases to hit the city recently. In the last two weeks, eight businesses from West Ashley, James Island and...

Note: The following text is a quote: YOU ARE HERE: Home > Reports > Consular Affairs Bulletins > Report Warden Message: Ecuador Conterfeiting Problems CONSULAR AFFAIRS BULLETINS Americas - Ecuador 30 Jul 2009 U.S. Embassy Quito issued the following Warden Message on July 30, 2009: The U.S. Embassy and Consulate General in Ecuador wish to inform American citizens visiting or resident in Ecuador of the continuing problem of counterfeit U.S. dollars circulating within Ecuador. We remind American citizens to check your currency carefully when leaving any banking institution or private business within Ecuador. Recently, we’ve received reports of counterfeit bills...

This divorce decree shows Barry's parents divorcing with two children one a minor child and one and adult still dependant on education. So at age 19 his parents were still Soetoro.. he was still Soetoro. Then when he goes to law school in IL he signs a document that declares he never had any other name than Barack Obama. That is a sworn lying statement and a felony and you could be disbarred for false information. If y This was posted on Orly’s facebook

http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSN1946360420090619 Fri Jun 19, 2009 By David Lawder WASHINGTON, June 19 (Reuters) - A purported $134 billion in U.S. government bearer bond certificates seized by police near the Italian-Swiss border are fake, the U.S. Treasury said on Friday. "Based on the photograph we've seen online, they are clearly fake. And not even good fakes," said Stephen Meyerhardt, a spokesman for the Treasury's Bureau of the Public Debt. He added that there is only $105 million in Treasury bearer bond securities outstanding, so the $134 billion amount seized far exceeds the universe of outstanding securites. The Treasury's determination confirmed the suspicions...

ROME — Two Japanese nationals were detained by Italian financial police last week after trying to enter Switzerland with $134 billion worth of undeclared U.S. bonds, mostly Treasury bonds, an Italian daily said Wednesday. The Japanese consulate general in Milan confirmed that the detention had taken place and said it was trying to confirm with Italian authorities whether the two were indeed Japanese nationals and their identities. According to the report in il Giornale, two unidentified Japanese in their 50s concealed the bonds, including 249 U.S. Treasury bonds each worth $500 million, in a suitcase with a false bottom that...

Check out the article on Drudge. There's a bloomberg story (can't post it due to rules) saying two men had a suitcase filled with 134 billion in US government bonds they were taking out of Italy. That would make them the fourth largest creditors of the US govt, and it's a big problem if they are real . . . or if they are fake.

Watch this unbelievable video!!! Put it in a separate window, and make it a small window so you can read the transcript below in my comment.

Note: Photos included. On June 6, the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office began an investigation into counterfeit goods being sold at the Flea Market at 2710 Whitehorse Road. During the investigation, operations conducted lead them to believe that Wayne Boyd and Kip Shamiker were operating booths at the Flea Market with counterfeit merchandise. Investigators say the items included DVDs, CDs, and name brand apparel including Coogi, Polo, Nike, NFL, NBA, Coach, Gucci, and Dooney and Burke. Investigators say they knew the items were fake, through security features on merchandise tags and labels.

ASHEVILLE, NC—Bernard von NotHaus, 65, formerly of Evansville, Indiana, and two additional defendants from Evansville, along with William Kevin Innes, 53, of Asheville, North Carolina, have been indicted in U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina on conspiracy and other charges in connection with an alleged unlawful operation to publish, possess and sell for profit, coins in resemblance and similitude to U.S. coins. All four defendants are also charged in the alleged conspiracy with uttering and passing, and attempting to utter and pass, a coin of silver in resemblance of genuine coins of the United States in...

A North Korean general who is a confidant of the country's leader, Kim Jong-il, has been identified by U.S. and foreign intelligence agencies as a key figure in the covert production and distribution of high-quality counterfeit $100 bills called supernotes, according to documents and interviews with intelligence officials.

Many Americans today believe certain illegal vices in our society should be decriminalized, taxed, and regulated. The most popular of these vices include marijuana smoking, prostitution, and all forms of gambling. The proponents for decriminalization believe that the new tax revenues produced would help support schools, healthcare, and the impoverished, ease the pain of taxpayers, and reduce the deficit. They also believe that transgressions such as these will take place no matter, but, if properly regulated, would be safer for society in general. It would be a win, win situation. Unfortunately, when it comes to lowering taxes and helping the...

RTNews (RussiaToday News) reported March 26 that the Obama Administration is seeking the power through legal channels to have the right to see just what is on your computer hard drive. Funny how the mainstream media has not given this story any coverage. The way in which the Obama Administration intends to carry out this flagrant violation of privacy will be under the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). Below is a definition of the ACTA courtesy of Wikipedia. The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is a proposed plurilateral trade agreement which is alleged by its proponents to be in response "to the...

A congressional investigation has exposed gaping holes in security eight years after the September 11 terrorist attacks, a government report says. An investigator used a false identification to obtain a U.S. passport and then used the passport to get an airline boarding pass and go through an airport security checkpoint, according to the Government Accountability Office. The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, said its undercover investigator conducted four tests of the passport issuance system and "easily" obtained passports every time. Individuals with "even minimal counterfeiting capabilities" can obtain genuine U.S. passports, which can be used to travel overseas, open...

Last September, the Bush administration defended the unusual secrecy over an anti-counterfeiting treaty being negotiated by the U.S. government, which some liberal groups worry could criminalize some peer-to-peer file sharing that infringes copyrights. Now President Obama's White House has tightened the cloak of government secrecy still further, saying in a letter this week that a discussion draft of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement and related materials are "classified in the interest of national security pursuant to Executive Order 12958." The 1995 Executive Order 12958 allows material to be classified only if disclosure would do "damage to the national security and the...

OTTAWA -- Consumers and retailers should be cautious when buying toothbrushes after counterfeit products bearing brand names were found on the Canadian market, Health Canada warned Monday. The toothbrushes are falsely labelled as Colgate Massager, Colgate Navigator, Oral B Classic 40, Oral B Contura and Colgate 360. "If an imitation is suspected, consumers should stop using them immediately, as the quality, safety and effectiveness of counterfeit products cannot be assured," Health Canada said in an advisory. Retailers with stock from Canadian importer AG Liquidation should check their products for authenticity and remove any they suspect to be bogus, the agency...

The number of fake £1 coins in circulation now stands at more than 30 million, according to the Royal Mint. How do you know if you've been given one? That £1 coin in your pocket could be worthless. The number of fake pound coins in circulation has doubled in the past five years and one in every 50 is now counterfeit.

With the economy riding a downward-arrow, and bailout talk getting more airplay then the Beatles did when they invaded in 1964, it may be time to trek to your friendly neighborhood office supply chain and stock up on ink jet cartridges and follow the lead of two Milwaukee, Wisconsin neighborhoods – that is, if the people there decide to follow through on a plan that will have eyebrows flexing John Belushi-style.The plan?To take matters into their own hands.As they see it … When the going gets tough, the tough print their own money.Really.Funny money discussions are set to take place...

They may be talking funny money, but it's not funny business. Residents from the Milwaukee neighborhoods of Riverwest and East Side are scheduled to meet Wednesday to discuss printing their own money. The idea is that the local cash could be used at neighborhood stores and businesses, thus encouraging local spending. The result, supporters hope, would be a bustling local economy, even as the rest of the nation deals with a recession. "You have all these people who have local currency, and they're going to spend it at local stores," said Sura Faraj, a community organizer who is helping spearhead...

The chasm between those who want President-elect Barack Obama to produce his birth certificate to verify his eligibility to hold the nation's highest office and those who simply support the Democrat is widening. "The Constitution means what we today decide it means," opined one participant on a new WND forum that offers readers an opportunity to express their opinion on the birth certificate dispute.

John McCain suggested Sunday that Barack Obama’s record-breaking fund raising was a gateway to corruption. During an appearance on “Fox News Sunday,” the Republican nominee expressed concern over the amount of money his Democratic opponent was raising — and spending. Obama brought in a jaw-dropping $150 million in September, eclipsing his past record of $66 million. In talking about the news, McCain repeatedly referred to the Watergate scandal that resulted in the impeachment of former President Richard Nixon. McCain pointed to that incident, which included Republicans breaking into the Democratic National Committee offices, as an example of the kind of...

Over the past year, US citizens have become increasingly aware of the substandard consumer-level goods flowing out of China, but new reports indicate that the counterfeit products and dubious quality controls are not confined to the consumer sector. An increasingly large number of supposedly military-grade electronic components are turning out to be counterfeit commercial-grade hardware that, in some cases, is decades older than the manufacturing label indicates. The problem, to be sure, is not entirely China's fault. Back in 1994 and 1996, the Clinton Administration passed two bills, the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act (1994), and the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996...

U.S. Wary Of Small Boat Terrorism As boating season approaches, the Bush administration wants to enlist America's 80 million recreational boaters to help reduce the chances that a small boat could deliver a nuclear or radiological bomb somewhere along the 95,000 miles of U.S. coastline and inland waterways. According to an April 23 intelligence assessment obtained by The Associated Press, "The use of a small boat as a weapon is likely to remain al Qaeda's weapon of choice in the maritime environment, given its ease in arming and deploying, low cost, and record of success." While the United States...

The FBI announced Friday that an investigation into counterfeit network components made in China and sold to the U.S. government has recovered about 3,500 fake devices with a value of $3.5 million. The criminal probe, code-named Operation Cisco Raider, was prompted by concerns that counterfeit network components could give hackers access to government databases. But one U.S. official told Reuters that the components discovered by the FBI are not believed to have made government computer systems more vulnerable. The existence of the probe came to light after an unclassified FBI PowerPoint presentation in January on the agency's efforts to counter...

Some months ago, my contacts in the defense industry had alerted me to a startling development that has escalated to the point of near-panick in nearly all corners of Government security and IT infrastructure. The very-real concern, being investigated by the FBI, is that either the Chinese government or Chinese hackers (or both) have had the benefit of undetectable back-doors into highly secure government and military computer networks for months, perhaps years. The cause: a high-number of counterfeit Cisco routers and switches installed in nearly all government networks that experienced upgrades and/or new units within the past 18 months.

When cold medicine containing a poison made in China killed nearly 120 Panamanians in 2006 and early 2007, Americans could take some comfort in the belief that a similar epidemic could never happen here, not with one of the best drug regulatory systems in the world. Then last spring, hundreds if not thousands of pets died or were sickened in the United States by a Chinese pet food ingredient that contained lethal levels of melamine, an industrial product used to artificially boost protein levels. That was followed quickly by the discovery that Americans were brushing their teeth with Chinese toothpaste...

(HONG KONG) - Italian confectioner Ferrero has won a five-year battle against a Chinese firm producing fakes of its famous gold-wrapped Ferrero Rocher chocolates in a ruling hailed by upmarket brands, a newspaper reported on Wednesday. China's Supreme People's Court ordered mainland company Montresor to stop making the nutty chocolates and pay "symbolic" damages of 500,000 yuan (US$71,430), the South China Morning Post reported. "It is already hard for Italian companies, and foreign ones in general, to get into China, overcome resistance put up against foreign products, build up a commercial network and invest in the country, only to be...

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a notice Monday reminding reactor license applicants and nuclear power plant operators to prevent counterfeit parts from posing a safety concern. The notice cites two counterfeit valves at the Hatch facility near Baxley, Ga., of which NRC learned in November 2007, and one of these was installed as a cooling water pump discharge stop check valve on Hatch Unit 2. Catawba, a facility in Rock Hill, S.C., removed four circuit breakers from its stock after checking and being unable to confirm their authenticity, according to the notice, which stresses that none of these items was...

March 6, 2008 Drug Tied to China Had Contaminant, F.D.A. Says By GARDINER HARRIS and WALT BOGDANICH WASHINGTON — Federal drug regulators said Wednesday that a critical blood thinner that had been linked to at least 19 deaths and whose raw components were produced in China contained a possibly counterfeit ingredient that mimicked the real drug. Routine tests failed to distinguish the contaminant from the drug, heparin. Only sophisticated magnetic resonance imaging tests uncovered that as much as 20 percent of the product’s active ingredient was a heparin mimic blended in with the real thing. Federal officials said they did...