NASIRIYAH, Iraq — While some bills were crudely made and easily detected, U.S. military officials said, much of the money seized has been sophisticated fake hundred-dollar notes that require special printing presses, ink and paper.
In the Middle East, such capabilities typically belong to Iran and its proxies, notably branches of the Lebanese Shiite Muslim militant group Hezbollah.
"It runs the gamut of the local stuff on the ... printer — not the right paper, but kind of looks like it — all the way up to the very well-made versions that we see, the ones coming in from Lebanon," said Army Col. Peter Newell, commander of the 4th Brigade of the 1st Armored Division, which operates in Maysan and two other southern provinces near the border with Iran.
In recent weeks, the officers said, Iraqi and U.S. forces have started an anti-counterfeiting push that involves educating merchants and bankers and gathering intelligence which lead them to the money whaich was linked to Iran's attempt to influence Iraq's March 7 parliamentary elections and to launder money for militia activity in Iraq's southern Shiite heartland.
Southern Iraq, with mostly Shiite provinces that border Iran, is the main entry point for Iranian goods: legitimate items such as produce and building supplies and contraband such as weapons, drugs and counterfeit cash. Iraqi and U.S. agents have seized about $500,000 of the fake hundred-dollar bills in the recent push, nearly all of it in Maysan and other provinces near the border.
The sudden influx of counterfeit notes three months before the March 7 parliamentary elections suggests that Iran was trying to influence the outcome.
An election "is certainly one of the purposes of a mass quantity of cash all of a sudden," Officer, Newell said. "It can pay for lethal aid; it can pay for elections; it can pay for commodities. It can be laundered into a lot of things.
Based on Source:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2011619190_counterfeit16.html
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