Peru tops in making fake U.S. money

LIMA, Peru - With its meticulous criminal craftsmen, cheap labor, and, by some accounts, less effective law enforcement, Peru has in the last two years overtaken Colombia as the No. 1 source of counterfeit U.S. dollars, says the U.S. Secret Service, protector of the world's most widely traded currency.

In response, the service opened a permanent office in Lima last year, only its fourth in Latin America, and has since helped Peru's police arrest 50 people on counterfeiting charges.

Over the last decade, $103 million in fake U.S. dollars "made in Peru" has been seized - nearly half since 2010, Peruvian and U.S. officials say. Unlike most other counterfeiters, who rely on sophisticated late-model inkjet printers, the Peruvians generally go a step further - finishing each bill by hand.

"It's a very good note," said a Secret Service officer at the U.S. Embassy. "They use offset, huge machines that are used for regular printing of newspapers, or flyers."

"Once a note is printed they will throw five people [on it] and do little things, little touches that add to the quality," he said, speaking on condition he not be further identified for security reasons.

The phony money heads mostly to the United States but is also smuggled to nearby countries, said Col. Segundo Portocarrero, chief of the Peruvian police's fraud division.

Peru became more attractive to counterfeiters as Washington's decade-long Plan Colombia program tightened the screws not just on drug traffickers in that neighboring Andean nation but other criminals as well, he speculated.

Only $100 bills get shipped by counterfeiters to the United States, while $10s and $20s are sent to Peru's neighbors, Portocarrero said.