Free Republic

"For generations now, we have denied the food of revealed truth to our children; and we have permitted the moral polluters to dump their garbage into our culture with abandon. Why then, are we surprised that ours has become a stunted and sick society?" - Patrick J. Buchanan The times are growing very dark. Everywhere signs are emerging which point to the appearance of the Man of Sin. A Brazilian heavy metal band is announcing the Age of Antichrist (see here). We have a Pontiff who preaches a "live and let live" philosophy (see here) which is nothing less than...

Two Queens men are charged with selling fake gold coins after they allegedly scammed a victim out of $14,000. Colonie officers arrested Sungwook Hong, 33, and Yohann Pyon, 26, after they allegedly tried to sell coins to an undercover investigator. The department learned of the coin scam on May 28 when a victim reported answering a Craigslist offering of 1-ounce American Gold Eagle coins for sale.

LAKE ELSINORE: Girl Scouts receive counterfeit bills, woman sought Some Inland Girl Scouts got a hard life lesson this week when they discovered their cookies had been paid for with counterfeit bills. Scouts in Lake Elsinore received two fake $20s on Thursday, Feb. 27, and in Rancho Cucamonga on Saturday there were two reports of girls selling cookies who were paid with counterfeit $50s. Riverside County sheriff’s officials on Tuesday released surveillance images of a woman they described as a “person of interest” in the Lake Elsinore case and are asking for help from the public to identify her. The...

The United States returned to Iran a 2,700-year-old silver drinking cup, looted from a cave in Iran and seized by US Customs officials a decade ago, NBC news reported. The cup is valued at a million dollars at least. … The cup, cast in the shape of a winged griffin, has been stored in a New York warehouse, since authorities seized it from an art dealer who was arrested trying to sell it. For years, US officials have been saying they couldn’t return it to Iran until diplomatic ties with Tehran were normalized. …

Local sources tell me this: Counterfeit bills turned in to the Fed used to number 1-2 per YEAR. At this date (April 12, 2013 - Friday), the count turned in to the Fed was already at 10 and we are only at April 15, 2013.

It was a scene familiar to any nostalgia buff: all-night lines waiting for the banks (first in Ohio, then in Maryland) to open; pompous but mendacious assurances by the bankers that all is well and that the people should go home; a stubborn insistence by depositors to get their money out; and the consequent closing of the banks by government, while at the same time the banks were permitted to stay in existence and collect the debts due them by their borrowers. In other words, instead of government protecting private property and enforcing voluntary contracts, it deliberately violated the property...

Federal officials take down 132 websites in 'Cyber Monday' crackdownBy Brendan Sasso - 11/26/12 12:20 PM ET U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and European officials seized 132 websites on Monday for allegedly selling counterfeit merchandise in a coordinated crackdown timed to coincide with the holiday shopping season. It is the third straight year that the government has seized websites on "Cyber Monday" — the marketing term for the Monday after Thanksgiving, when many online retailers offer steep discounts and promotions. ICE's Homeland Security Investigations unit coordinated with officials from Belgium, Denmark, France, Romania, the United Kingdom and the European Police...

An Australian mint has called in the Federal Police after being shown evidence by Seven News that its gold bars are being counterfeited. The investigation uncovered Chinese 'forgery factories' that will churn out fake bullion and even Australian coins, for a fraction of their face value. Just one of the bars should be worth more than $1700. "There are some poor people out there who have gone and bought these products thinking they've got a bargain and have actually been ripped off," Ron Currie from the Perth Mint said. At Wenzhou, in China's south east, a suspicious discovery is made...

My first experience with a physical euro was mid-December 2001 when I travelled to Europe for preliminary discussions with potential partners for the startup I ended up launching later that year. First stop: Germany. Bank showcases were filled with euro feel-good agitprop. Euro bills and coins would enter circulation on January 1, and this was part of the long-running campaign to persuade Germans to surrender their Deutsche marks. People had some apprehensions, and some wanted to retain the D-Mark, but my business contacts were gleeful: the euro would become the dominant reserve currency in the world; oil would be priced in...

President Obama's re-election campaign has won at least a partial victory against a website it said was selling counterfeit merchandise with the campaign's signature "O" logo. A judge in Washington on Monday agreed to bar Washington-based Demstore.com from selling the T-shirts and buttons bearing the "O" logo. But the judge reserved judgment on whether the website should also be barred from selling...

Even the best weapons may fizzle on the battlefield if they contain counterfeit parts. A final report issued by the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee lists a wide range of military technologies that are suspected of having counterfeit electronic parts. The report found possible counterfeit problems in U.S. military hardware such as Army thermal weapon sights, Navy patrol aircraft, Air Force bombers and even mission computers for U.S. missile defense systems. But the committee hopes that its amendment in the National Defense Authorization Act for 2012 — signed into law last Dec. 31 — can give U.S. defense companies the...

SHELBYVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee police are apologizing after arresting a man for using a $50 bill they thought was fake but that turned out to be real. Police in Shelbyville thought the bill was counterfeit after a convenience store clerk called them. The clerk said a marker used to detect false money didn't show the bill was real. (excerpt - read more at link)

Tennessee police are apologizing after arresting a man for using a $50 bill they thought was fake but that turned out to be real. Police in Shelbyville thought the bill was counterfeit after a convenience store clerk called them. The clerk said a marker used to detect false money didn't show the bill was real. The Shelbyville Times-Gazette reported Officer Brock Horner arrested Lorenzo Gaspar on Friday. But a police evidence technician told the arresting officer that some old bills don't react to the markers. So police gave the money to two banks to check, and they said it was...

Last November, researchers for the Senate Armed Forces Services Committee, reported our military had purchased and installed counterfeit electronic components into Warplanes and other weapons systems. During their research the committee claimed that it found more than a million fake parts in a random sample with approximately 70% of the electronic parts originating from China. The components would find their way into the Defense Supply Chain through approved commercial distributors who purchase the parts directly from China. The Chinese would purposely pack counterfeit parts with in genuine military grade components and sell the batch to the Defense Logistics Agency at...

Two suitcases crammed with counterfeit $100 bills were seized in Kuala Lumpur this week from two Iranian traders who flew in to the Malaysian capital on direct flights from Tehran. One contained 153,000 forged dollars and the second 203,000. The traders claimed they were issued the bills by tellers at the Iranian central bank CBI to finance their business transactions and had no notion they had not been dealt genuine greenbacks.

China Does Nothing to Stop Counterfeit Defense Parts; Findings 'Should Outrage Every American' CAPITOL HILL: "These findings should outrage every American." Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is a tough former prosecutor but he rarely offers such sweeping condemnations as he did today when releasing the findings of a congressional sting operation designed to test whether China had changed its ways and had started combating counterfeit defense parts. "The Chinese government's refusal to shut down counterfeiting that occurs openly in their country puts our national security and the safety of our military men and women at...

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...