The Colombian National Police, together with the United States secret service, dismantled an organization dedicated to the manufacture of false dollars, made with Venezuelan bolivars. The purchase of hundreds of boxes full of bolivars on the border between Colombia and Venezuela was the first warning bell for the authorities that some illegal activity could be taking place with foreign currency.
After carrying out an exhaustive investigation, it was found that the counterfeit bills were high-quality replicas, made on paper money, of Venezuelan bills. The criminals managed to perfect the fraud, in such a way that for the common citizen it was almost impossible to find the difference between the false and the real bills, only the experts were able to identify the deception.
The authorities were alerted by a human source that revealed the existence of a criminal business, which moved large amounts of money each month. The first clues provided by this source led the authorities to go to the border with Ecuador, where, when analyzing bills of 50 and 100 dollars, they found that they were false, however, these circulated without any problem, since they were high-quality replicas. , and the key was that they were made on paper money.
The data showed that the organization moved between one and two million illegal dollars a month and the chain to make the illegal bills began in Cúcuta, Norte de Santander, where the network bought bolivars by the box, taking advantage of the devaluation of that currency.
The banknotes were taken to Medellín, where they were subjected to a sophisticated chemical process to completely erase the design of the banknotes and leave the banknote paper blank so that it could be reprinted with the designs of the 50 and 100 dollars. Later, the banknotes were subjected to another chemical process to give them color, smell and fix details such as relief in security seals, holograms and texture of an original banknote.
With the finished counterfeit bills, the organization sent them by land in boxes to the border area between Colombia and Ecuador, where another organization was in charge of introducing them into the Ecuadorian urban economy as if they were legitimate money.
The director of the Dijín, General Olga Salazar, pointed out that “This is a scourge of years, criminals are always looking for new modalities. Now they buy the bolivars, convert them into dollars and sell them between 2,000 and 2,500 pesos”.
The Criminal Investigation and Interpol Directorate (Dijín) dismantled a network dedicated to counterfeiting and selling dollars in the country. In the operation, eight people were captured; among them six false soldiers, the logistician and the carrier in charge of storing and distributing the tickets in the border area.
As revealed by the authorities, the network operated by deceiving unsuspecting citizens through the Internet. Fake soldiers generally contacted people who were selling high-priced goods or properties. Later, they asked their victims to meet to discuss business.
At the meeting, the delinquents arrived dressed as soldiers, who, when closing the business, warned that the payment was made in dollars, with bills that had been rescued from guacas buried by the Farc, but that it was legitimate money, only because they were military, had had access to the money.
To gain the trust of the victim, the criminals used real dollars to break into the business, and the surplus was paid with counterfeit bills. The victim went to a money order house to make the change to Colombian pesos and seeing that they were legitimate, the ‘tumbe’ was completed.
Investigators also found that the fake military network rented apartments by the hour, where they supposedly took the victims to close the businesses, but in reality they tied them up, took their money, jewelry and cell phones and left them lying around.
One of the victims narrated his bitter experience with the false soldiers to whom he was going to sell at high prices some exclusive breed cats with a record to sell in other countries.
“One of them told us that his cousin was a sergeant in the Army and was interested in the cat business. They gave us an appointment in a military battalion and the sergeant told us that they had carried out an operation in which they had found a cove and they needed to move the dollars quickly”, the victim accessed the business; However, she almost ended up in legal trouble for carrying false dollars, since the Police arrived in the middle of the transaction.
Due to these facts, the Dijín captured six people in Bogotá and Cali and the structure known as La 37 was dismantled. It is estimated that the criminal structure would have achieved a fraud with counterfeit money of more than 500 million pesos, only in the case of the seven victims, but it is estimated that there were hundreds of millions that the criminal group managed to obtain.
Finally, the director of the Dijín, reminded the citizens that when businesses sound very attractive, they must be wary, because surely they will be scammed as happened in this last case, where the dollars from the supposed Farc guacas ended up being the worst experience for those affected.