Counterfeiters circulated $95m fake dollars globally last year, says US official

Counterfeit United States currency amounting to about $95.2m was circulated worldwide last year, the Federal Reserve Board associate director for Banknote Planning and Quality Control has said.Talking about the new $100 bill which is said to be harder to replicate, Michael J. Lambert, told African journalists in a telephone conference on Friday that about $80.7m in fake currency changed hands in the United States, while about $14.5m exchanged hands abroad in 2012.“The new bill was produced using advanced technology that is harder to simulate and is also not commercially available on the market so it will be difficult for counterfeiters to obtain it to reproduce new $100 notes,” Lambert, who is also in charge of Banknote Issuance and Cash Operations programmes, said.It is reported that Peru is the leading counterfeiter of the United States currency. Over the past decade, fake $103m “made in Peru” was seized, according to reports.Uganda Revenue Authority arrested two Congolese nationals in northern Uganda in possession of $390,000 in fake notes last week.Lambert, however, said the counterfeit notes account for a small portion of the total amount of the greenback in circulation globally, which is $1.17 trillion, thus not a big threat.Of all the dollar notes, the $100 bill is the most counterfeited since it is also the biggest note the Federal Reserve has ever produced.