Re: Explaining currency design

On Apr 24, 2025 at 12:32:35 AM PDT, ""Adam H. Kerman"" <ahk@chinet.com>
wrote:

Will BTR1701 say they got thisall wrong?
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zkq4cv5dH7I

Nope, he got it all right.

I had a particularly mysterious incident happen at LAX back in 2015, where CBP
had stopped a guy traveling under a South Korean passport but had identified
him through biometrics as being North Korean. He had five bricks of U.S. $100
FRNs in his carry-on and it was genuine as near as they could tell. They
called the USSS to run it by us. I was the USSS duty agent that week and I got
the call. I ran the identifiers through our system and they came up as
supernotes, so I hauled ass out to LAX and started an investigation and I was
on the phone to U.S. Attorney in the process of drawing up an arrest warrant
when my phone rang.

It was headquarters and the guy on the other end identified himself as the
Deputy Director for Investigations and he told me to pack all the FRNs into
the guy's carry-on and let him go on his way. To say that everything about the
call was unusual was an understatement, so I told him that respectfully all I
had was a voice on the other end of a phone telling me to turn a major
international criminal suspect loose and that until I had some verification, I
wasn't going to do that. He said he understood and told me to stand by. A
minute later, my phone rang again and it was the Special Agent in Charge of
L.A. who confirmed both the DDI's identity and told me to comply with his
instructions. While I was taking that call, the CBP agent's phone also rang.
It was the Director of CBP basically telling him to do the same thing and to
purge all paperwork regarding the guy's detention.

So that's what we did. Gave him back about $250,000 in near-perfect
counterfeits and put him back on a flight to Australia.

I was never told what it was all about. I suspect it either had something to
with an ongoing HQ-level op and the guy was some kind of cooperating informant
on his way to a buy or the State Department had some other irons in the fire
with the Norks which my arresting that guy would have queered.