This week's Coin World has a lead article on how the SS and the FBI are going after various coin counterfeiters: "The U.S. Secret Service’s continuing multi-jurisdictional investigation into the sale of counterfeit United States coins is widening, with incidents reported by law enforcement agencies in at least 12 states. In a recent arrest near Buffalo, N.Y., one of the individuals charged with attempting to sell counterfeit Seated Liberty, Morgan and Peace dollars had previously been charged with similar crimes elsewhere and released from federal custody. The special agent and the lead investigator for the Secret Service in the Buffalo office for probes into the counterfeit coin sales confirmed April 2 the agency is working with local law enforcement on a number of cases."(April 23)
Full article is available online here, but limited pics. The digital version and print version has the suspects mugshots and images of some of the fake coins.
My guess is the story was planted to try to scare some people straight. I have not seen much success with these. I haven't heard much abotu the guy from here in MN that PCGS was suing for selling fake slabs. The last I heard about it he was, "in China looking for some dimes", (true quote from his business partner when contacted about the man's whereabouts, lol).
The problem is, they are NOT going after the counterfeiters. They (the counterfeiters) are based in China, and regardless of where these two guys say they got their coins, most of us know where they originated.
Only the serious ones would be. If you're gonna counterfeit something, knowledge is key in doing it right. I'm sure some of the coin counterfeiters in the world know just as much or more as serious hardcore collectors do. It's just like computer crackers, they know more about computer systems than most security experts who try to prevent attacks do.
On March 27, 2012, Brian Jenkins, 53, from Irvington, N.J., was arrested and charged by Amherst police with criminal possession of forged instruments and traffic violations. Bad driving, too.
Very true sir. IDK about CW, but some experts in NN even state they are not giving out all tell tale features of some fakes. They say as soon as they publish known errors on the fakes, those errors disappear in new fakes. I would say at least the better forgers are pretty well plugged in to the US numismatic marketplace and media. I'd like to plug every dang one of them in the ......
I read the article and the two dopes that got pinched were trying to unload silver dollars for $10@. Clearly, they aren't two of the world's great thinkers!
Yeah, and the one rube got flagged for doing it two years ago. Some folks never learn, but ya wanna know something scary? These guys seem organized in their efforts.
The counterfeiters over in China could care less about the US secret service coming after them.They are untouchable over there,and they know it.
I don't see anywhere in this article where the FBI was involved. Regardless, this is a bad guy, but he's not a counterfeiter. A counterfeiter is one who manufacturers a genuine article for fradulent intent, i.e. to sell as genuine. This guy isn't doing any manufacturing... he's trying to pass off phoney coins and bullion that's he's obtained from the counterfeiter. I think the secret service is wasting taxpayers dollars chasing the "bottom feeders" when they should be concentrating more on the source (though that's probably even more of a pipe dream). These guys weren't trying to pass rare numismatic items as such, but merely as precious metals (jewelry stores pay a percentage of melt value, not numismatic value). Maybe the s.s. is trying to apease the numismatic community, lol.
Exactly, it's the Secret Service that is in charge of protecting the currency of the US. The OP made an error by inserting FBI in reference to the article. Coin World didn't call out the 'Secret Service' in the title of the piece since the article talks about local law enforcement, so they opted for "authorities" in the title. But of course, the ultimate authority who is really authorized to deal with these crimes is the Secret Service. The article mentions "multi-juristictional" activity in this case and the enlistment of "local law enforcement" but those local authorities would be under the command of the Feds as it's their case and jurisdiction anyway. I'd think the Feds more so needed local support and needed to include them in the alert to the local community of any ongoing investigation, operations or arrests being made by Federal authorities in those States. Regarding their approach, going straight for the head isn't always possible in a system where proof is needed. Sometimes (oftentimes?) the justice system has to work it's way up to the ring leader from the bottom. Sometimes the bottom feeders provide the 'necessary to convict' evidence on the road to the top, and also the bottom feeders may tend to be more of a public nuisance spreading these and other crimes around local communities threatening general havoc and distress to everyday transactions and businesses, impacting individual people's lives. So much so, that these lower ranking criminals must be dealt with sooner. They are also that much easier to take off the streets with priors and not as much cover to keep them from being detained if observed active in illegal activities.
Thanks for the correction. My posting was imperfect as you cite; I thought it was important to get a debate going on the article. And that is the merit of sites like this. In the past you would see an article, get concerned, and write a letter to a publication that would take weeks to appear without much opportunity for interaction. Thanks to the magic of the internet, we can get to the bottom of an issue. I could not correct my mis-spelling of "Secret" in the original posting after noticing it.
