The Marmot’s Hole

(I started this draft last week but kind of lost interest in it.  It is old news now, but I figure I need to get it out of my draft box.  Maybe one of our fine Marmot’s Hole readers hasn’t heard about it yet.)  

Authorities are investigating why UN officials failed to turn over North Korean counterfeit dollars to American officials (International Herald Tribune):

U.N. and American authorities are investigating how $3,500 in suspected counterfeit $100 bills ended up sitting in a safe in the U.N. Development Program’s office in North Korea for 12 years, the agency’s chief spokesman said Monday.

The Herald Tribune piece also tells how the agency ended up with the money:

Morrison said the $3,500 in question had been sent to the UNDP office in North Korea in 1995 by an Egyptian who had done consulting services for the agency. He said the Egyptian had been paid with a check, which he cashed at a bank in North Korea for American currency. When the man took the $3,500 home to Egypt, a bank there refused to accept the $100 bills and invalidated them.

Morrison said the man did not provide the UNDP office with any information to confirm that the bills had come from the Foreign Trade Bank in Pyongyang. He said the man was not issued another check from the office.

The money then apparently remained in a safe at the UNDP office until last month when the head of the North Korea office recalled that the bills were there during a visit to UNDP headquarters in New York, he said.

I have to admit that I find it hard to believe that they had no idea of how the man got the dollars.  The bills made the trip with him from North Korea all the way to Egypt and then all the way back to North Korea.  In the course of what was undoubtedly a heated conversation, I am pretty sure that the Egyptian man would have mentioned that he got the fake bills in North Korea.  Why else would he bring (send?)  them all the way back to North Korea?

BTW, I would be interested in knowing what condition the bills were in (although I think Kim Jong-il has seen enough gangster videos to know that he need to tumble his fakes in the dryer for a cycle or two).