Perú: capital del billete falso

Así lo asegura un reporte de The Economist:

NOT to be outdone by the world’s central bankers, some Peruvians have taken to printing money

. In the past two months, Peru’s police have seized some $40m in near-perfect replicas of American dollar bills in $20, $50 and $100 denominations, as well as $5m in fake Peruvian currency and smaller amounts of Venezuelan bolívares and of euros. That compares with total worldwide seizures of counterfeit dollars by the United States Secret Service (one of whose jobs is to protect the integrity of the currency) of $103m between October 2007 and August 2008. These figures suggest that Lima has become the counterfeiting capital of the Americas.

Colonel Alejandro Díaz, who heads the fraud unit of Peru’s National Police, suspects that the counterfeiters have moved to Lima from Colombia, which was an important source of fake dollars. The police surmise a link between counterfeiting and drug trafficking. Apart from the fake money, Peruvian counterfeiters have also become adept at forging passports, visas and the requisite seals and stamps needed for travel around the world. In one raid, officers seized passports from 16 different countries, from China to Poland.

¡Azángaro for export! No deja de ser interesante que no solo se falsifiquen dólares y soles, sino también bolívares. ¿Y qué tiene que ver el narcotráfico? Aquí Meche quizás debería dar una explicación que ahonde más en el tema.

(Lo siento, soy flojo. Si algún comentarista caritativo se apiada de los non-speakers, estaré muy agradecido)
imagen de Akira