Counterterrorism Blog

In a story related to the theme in Doug Farah's post below, the U.S. Justice Department yesterday announced a May 19 indictment of seven men on charges of obtaining and passing counterfeit dollars which originated in North Korea. Specifically, the indictment says that between December 1997 and July 2000, the seven handled up to $1m of counterfeit $100 bills from North Korean sources and arranged to transport, pass as genuine, or resell the bills in the the Republic of Ireland, the United Kingdom, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Germany, and elsewhere. The leader of the gang, Sean Garland, is referred to in the indictment as "the Chief of Staff� and "Colonel in Chief" of �the old style IRA,� also known as the "Official IRA," the military wing which split off from the political wing of the IRA (the "Provisional IRA") in 1969. Allegedly, the profits from the illegal enterprise went back into the Official IRA. The indictment is the result of a long investigation through the Russian Mafia - one of the defendants is Russian, and Garland allegedly traveled to Russia, Belarus, and Poland often - and found the gang using false identities, dummy couriers, codewords, money laundering techniques, and secure communication methods. No North Koreans were named, but the indictment states that "North Korean nationals acting as ostensible government officials engaged in the worldwide transportation, delivery, and sale of quantities" of the $100 bills. Last month, the Washington Times reported on the arrest of a Taiwanese national who was involved in the counterfeiting scheme. The Taiwanese national, Chao Tung Wu, told an FBI undercover agent that "the government of a foreign country," identified later by a Bush Administration official as North Korea, manufactured the counterfeit currency that he sold. Wu's trial is scheduled to begin next week.

Surely the North Koreans also used outlets in addition to the Official IRA, including possibly other terrorist groups, for marketing their phony dollars and other counterfeit goods. Matthew Levitt testified before a U.S. Senate committee in May about the use of counterfeiting and criminal enterprises by terrorists (Acrobat file). Steven Emerson also testified, in part, on various financing schemes used by terrorists when he appeared before another Senate committee in July. And it's interesting, maybe more than coincidental, that the indictment comes on top of news of a wave of counterfeit $100 bills hitting Baltimore.

You can see the new indictment against Garland and the six others below (Acrobat file courtesy of The Investigative Project on Terrorism):
Download USvGarlandIndictment051905.pdf