Knox then introduced Jake as the UC who met with the attorney, Reid, yesterday. Jake wasn’t thrilled his undercover role was now exposed to outside agencies, but he also couldn’t mask the confusion on his face. He remained silent but was having trouble coming to grips with why a murder-for-hire case was plaguing the JTTF and Secret Service.
There was a knock on the door and the gate guard glanced down at the flat-screen display on his desk, rose, and opened the portal. In walked a young, wiry Asian male, late twenties and athletic. He looked like a Korean Bruce Lee.
Jake was stunned! The new entry was one of Henry Yeong’s henchmen from the meeting in the restaurant. The two locked eyes before a slight smile appeared on the face of the newest visitor to the SCIF. He sat next to the mysterious man in the back of the room. Jake suppressed his alarm and the urge to interrupt the proceedings but focused his attention on the late arrival.
Olivia Knox reviewed the facts of the case to date and Jake had no quarrel with her presentation. Since outsiders were present she offered borderline praise for Jake’s undercover work, then she came to the meat of the issue. “Yesterday, Daniel Reid handed Jake a twenty-five-thousand-dollar deposit for the hit, all in hundreds, every bill a Supernote.”
There was an audible gasp from several of the administrative minions.
Knox gave a primer to those in the meeting. “It’s no secret North Korea’s a criminal empire. Since the imposition of economic sanctions, drugs and counterfeit goods have played an integral part in the country’s survival. They are one of the world’s largest producers of opium, meth, and knockoff pharmaceuticals. We’ve seized tens of millions of dollars’ worth of counterfeit cigarettes and clothing manufactured in Pyongyang and its outlying towns and villages. Nothing occurs there without being approved by the government. All of its criminal activities are tightly controlled by Kim Jong Un’s regime loyalists just as it was under his father. We would be here all day if we had to rehash the incidents of North Korean diplomats linked to drugs, black-market arms shipments, human trafficking, and counterfeiting.”
Knox paused to catch her breath, but it made her next statement appear more dramatic. “One of the greatest threats to our economy and our national security is the Supernote. It’s been around for years but it took two multiagency undercover cases, headed up by the FBI, ‘Smoking Dragon’ on the West Coast and ‘Royal Charm’ on the East Coast, before any administration acknowledged North Korean government officials were printing the bills. Back in 2006, President Bush warned North Korea we were aware of their activities and reminded the leaders in Pyongyang that counterfeiting another nation’s currency is an act of war. Though the details are not relevant to this meeting, you should know it was because of these discreetly delivered warnings that North Korea returned to the nuclear weapons talks a few months later.
“The quality of the counterfeit one-hundred-dollar bill is so good, imperfections are almost undetectable. The bills are printed on a special intaglio press with optically variable ink. Even the paper has the long, parallel fibers used by our Bureau of Engraving and Printing.…”
Jake was impressed. Knox appeared to know a great deal about the Supernote.
She continued, “Those joint investigations slowed the flow of counterfeit bills into the U.S., but as the payment to Jake indicates, we didn’t stop it. North Korea’s the reason we modified the hundred-dollar bill last year. Certainly it’s our government’s hope the new bill will deter counterfeiting, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Pyongyang is busy engraving new plates so they can start counterfeiting our most recent hundreds. The first samples of North Korea’s work showed up in 1989. This is the third time we’ve redesigned the bill since then and in our two previous attempts North Korea kept up with our enhanced security. It’s just a matter of time before they are producing their latest version of the Supernote.”
“But even if the new-design bill is as tough to copy as Treasury hopes, the old U.S. currency is still in circulation — and so are the virtually indistinguishable North Korean Supernotes,” interjected Bauer, the Secret Service SAC.
Knox nodded. “As we saw yesterday, they are flowing through the global economy and will pass muster at any bank. When the new bills were issued last year there was an estimated nine hundred billion dollars — that’s billion with a b—of the old currency still in circulation. The old bills will gradually be phased out when they are too worn, but that will take years. From all our intelligence, Kim Jong Un is flooding the Asian and European markets with the old Supernotes trying to beat the phaseout.”
Robert Bauer added, “They are literally laundering the most recently produced Supernotes and aging the paper. The bills look as if they’ve been in circulation so as not to attract close scrutiny.”
Trey looked at Jake and nodded an affirmation.
Olivia Knox smiled, something few in the room had ever seen her do, and said, “It’s one thing for our Treasury to crank out more bills as part of an economic stimulus plan, but when a foreign government is manufacturing our money, it’s important that we stop it. Now it’s an imperative.”
Knox paused for effect and every eye turned toward her as she continued, “Everyone here knows North Korea has used Supernotes to finance terrorism and R&D on ICBMs and WMDs — nuclear, chemical, and biological. They’ve been getting away with it for years. We now have credible information from reliable sources that the regime in Pyongyang may have closed a barter deal involving Supernotes with another hostile power that poses a real and present danger — an existential threat, if you will — to the U.S. homeland.
“I am not at liberty to say more about this right now, but I can tell you that what started out as an organized-crime investigation may have grave national security implications — and I can tell you the potential damage goes well beyond weakening our dollar and strengthening an adversary’s global influence.
“I called this meeting because yesterday’s payoff to Jake appears to validate a new classified National Intelligence Assessment that the DPRK — the so-called Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, which we endearingly refer to as North Korea — is now engaged in a full-court press to accelerate conversion of Supernotes into goods and services of tangible value.
“The contents of the bag Reid passed to Jake represent one of the largest bulk uses of the Supernote we’ve seen in the United States since the arrests in August 2005. No matter how you slice it, the Supernotes are a serious assault on our monetary system and our national security.”
“So what made you decide to even check the quality of the currency Reid passed off yesterday?” asked Jake, leaning forward, fully engaged in the conversation, his attention diverted from Bruce Lee’s stunt double.
Bauer, the Secret Service SAC, took the question. “Park has been known to our office for a long time as a mover and shaker in the world of Korean organized crime. We’ve never been able to prove his involvement in the Supernote, but he’s been on our radar and we were aware of your operation.” Then, nodding toward Rachel Chang, he continued, “Yesterday, when Rachel told us of the payoff in U.S. hundreds, we asked to take a look. We knew Reid was Park’s attorney and suspected any currency he passed could have originated with Park and might be Supernotes. We guessed right.”
“You’re not saying you think Park’s financing his own daughter’s execution?” asked Jake.
“Not at all. We suspect Park and Reid have no intention of declaring their illegal gains to the IRS, so a lot of Park’s legal expenses are settled through cash payouts. In all likelihood, Park paid Reid for other services rendered and Reid used those same bills to pay you.”