Workers' Party boss linked to counterfeit 'super dollars'

Fake cash trail from Ireland went all around the world

Most of us probably thought the Official Republican Movement had given up on the money making business after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the tale of the fake fivers and workers' party printing press - apparently not!

Workers' Party boss linked to counterfeit 'super dollars'

Sunday August 18th 2002

THE president of the Workers' Party, Sean Garland, has been placed in the centre of an international counterfeiting operation producing tens of millions of US $100 bills in league with former Russian KGB agents, according to evidence given in court.

Mr Garland has been under investigation for almost a decade by United States Secret Service agents tracking the source of a counterfeiting operation, believed to be based in former Soviet countries.

Former Official IRA members who ran a counterfeiting operation in Dublin in the early 1980s fled after they were exposed by gardai but continued their operations from eastern Europe with the aid of ex-KGB contacts.

US sources say the counterfeiters were assisted in transporting and laundering the near-perfect $100 bills by North Korean officials who used diplomatic bags to ferry the counterfeits around the world. The US Secret Service has traced the bills from the Philippines to Europe.

North Korea and China are the only two remaining Communist states that continue to have "fraternal" relations with the Workers' Party.

US and British sources say the counterfeiting operation may be the biggest in history. The currency notes produced by the counterfeiters have become known as "super dollars" because of their near-perfect quality.

Details of the international counterfeiting ring emerged during a three- month court case in Britain which ended last month. A former KGB agent, wanted in Armenia in connection with two contract killings, was sentenced to nine years imprisonment for his part in distributing counterfeit notes with a face value of $27m.

Worcestershire Crown Court heard that David Levin, 36, and two other men collected the counterfeit dollars from an Official IRA man who brought the currency from Ireland to Birmingham. Levin and two English criminals, Mark Adderley, 44, and Terence Silcock, 57, laundered the money through banks, bureau de change and travel agents.

The court heard that Silcock had direct dealings with Sean Garland, who was described in evidence as "top jolly" of the Official IRA.

Silcock personally admitted receiving $4.2m in fake dollars. They then sent "clean" currency back to Moscow keeping a commission, believed to be around 45 per cent.

The Court heard that detectives from the British National Crime Squad (NCS) worked closely with the US Secret Service during a three-year investigation after one of the $100 bills turned up in Birmingham in 1998. It was spotted by a bank teller who drew it to the attention of local police who called in the US authorities.

At first the bill fooled the US agents because it was of such high quality. Only under further forensic examination was it found to be fake. The British police investigation, known as Operation Mali, involved officers posing as criminals interested in buying the counterfeit notes.

When the British police contacted the US Secret Service whose responsibilities including providing the bodyguard for the US President and for tracking dollar counterfeiting they found the Americans had been tracking the same counterfeiting operation since the late 1980s.

The super dollars first emerged in the Philippines in the 1980s and since then have turned up around the world. In May 2000, German customs officers seized fake notes with a face value of $250,000 at the Czech border. All the notes came from the same source.

Sean Garland was at the centre of covert US surveillance operation in May 1997 when a spy plane picked up secret communications between him and a senior Chinese Communist official.

A declassified National Security Agency (NSA) report released last year said: "Garland is suspected of being involved with counterfeiting US currency, specifically, the Supernote, a high-quality counterfeit $100 bill."

The US Air force RC-135 reconnaissance plane picked up details of communications between Garland and the director of the International Liaison Department of the Chinese Communist Party. The discussions were described as "political in nature". Garland and the remnants of his Workers' Party developed links with China and North Korea after the collapse of their previous sponsor, the Soviet Union.

The Chinese official later visited Ireland as a guest of the Workers' Party.

Garland admitted last year that he was a director of a company, registered in Dublin, called GKG Comms International which described itself as being "involved in sourcing power projects in China and Eastern European countries". He said the company had stopped trading some years previously.

He was previously a director of a company called Repsol. As well as being a legitimate publishing company, mainly producing left-wing material for the Workers' Party, Repsol rented a warehouse at Hanover Quay in Dublin which was used to house the Official IRA's counterfeiting operation. Gardai raided the warehouse in November 1983 and seized $1.5m worth of high quality counterfeit $5 notes.

One of three printing presses found in Hanover Quay had previously been housed in the Workers' Party headquarters in Gardiner Place, gardai later found.

On Friday night, John Jefferies, press officer for the Workers' Party said: "From what I know of Sean Garland personally and from what I know about the Workers' Party, this is outlandish.

"Every Ard Comhairle meeting I have ever been at has been a tortuous process of trying to find out where we are going to get a few bob from. This idea of fanciful amounts of money is just outlandish. The amount of money that we spent in the last general election was just a drop in the ocean. It would be {ñE}5,000 per constituency maximum," he said.

Mr Jefferies added: "So you are talking peanuts when it comes to the money in the Workers' Party. The story from what you have outlined seems off the wall."

Mr Garland was unavailable for comment.

WILLIE KEALY

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Fake cash trail from Ireland went all around the world

Sunday August 18th 2002

IN the late 1980s the head of Benjamin Franklin on the US $100 bill grew a little.

Most US citizens didn't notice this attempt by the American government to undermine the most sophisticated counterfeiting operation ever encountered by the US Secret Service. The change was designed to make it easier to catch counterfeiters operating out of former Soviet Russia and, it's also believed, North Korea.

How much success the move had has never been revealed. However, in 1999 the US authorities found that a 'big-head' note which had caught the eye of an experienced bank teller in the West Midlands of England was a fake. The counterfeiters had spotted the change and adapted their printing presses accordingly.

The US Secret Service has spent the last 15 years trying to track down what they regard as the world's largest and most successful dollar counterfeiting operation. Untold millions are involved. US authorities believe the international forging operation has its origins in Dublin in the early 1980s. An undercover Garda operation in 1983 turned up three printing presses in a warehouse on the Dublin quays producing thousands of fake Irish #5 notes. A bale of fivers with a face value of #1.5m was seized just as the forgers were prepared to release the counterfeits into the Christmas shopping season.

The head forger, an Official IRA man from Co Cork, fled before gardai could track him down and could not be found. Except, that is, by some of the other conspirators in the counterfeit operation.

It is believed the Corkman was taken behind the Iron Curtain with the assistance of East German secret police. There was already a link between the East Germans and the Officials' counterfeiters. It is believed the special paper needed for the counterfeiting operation may have been supplied by East German agents.

For years, little was heard of the former Official IRA man but throughout the 1980s and early 1990s more counterfeit currency turned up on both sides of the border: sterling notes in Northern Ireland and punts in the Republic. The suspicion was that the counterfeiter was still in business.

According to police sources in Northern Ireland, the notes were being smuggled into Belfast by figures associated with the Workers' Party returning from visits to Eastern Europe.

It has now emerged that the master counterfeiter had turned his attention to the much more lucrative and equally easy-to-copy US $100 bills, the common currency of Europe's underworld when trading in drugs and other forms of organised crime.

By the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union, US Secret Service agents learned the Irish counterfeiters had linked up with former KGB agents to step up their operation. Mutual friends in the last remaining closed communist country, North Korea, were providing the counterfeiters with a foolproof exit route from Russia by using diplomatic bags.

As co-operation between the US agents and the new democratic Russian government grew, it is believed the counterfeiting moved out of Russia, initially to Denmark and eventually to North Korea. The $100 bills began turning up around the globe. Production, according to a US source, was on an industrial scale and there was concern that the glut of notes could affect the currency market. Former KGB agents who moved into organised crime took over control of the operation and used their networks in Europe and abroad to spread the notes.

The sums involved are massive. The recent trial of three men in Worcester, England, heard that they alone had handled fake dollars with a face value of $28m over a period of only a few years.

US agents believe the core of the counterfeiting operation consists of ex- Communists and Marxists who maintained their hatred of capitalism while making millions from the exploitation of the monetary system at its core. They worked alongside Russian Mafia who plundered billions of dollars worth of resources from their own country before beginning lives of luxury in the West.

David Levin, a former Armenian KGB agent who was imprisoned for nine years last month for his part in laundering $28m worth of forged notes, enjoyed the fruits of capitalism to the fullest. He drove both a Jaguar S- type and a Mercedes.

After his operation was breached by National Crime Squad officers based in Birmingham, police followed his supply route to Moscow where undercover officers, supported by Russian police, were directed to a train station locker where they recovered $70,000 worth of the highest quality fakes, detectable only by trained experts.

Levin's trial at Worcester Crown Court heard that members of the Official IRA acted as middlemen. Levin and his associates laundered the cash through banks and exchange bureaux around the Midlands. They paid about 55 per cent of face value an exceptionally high tariff for counterfeit notes, reflecting the exceptionally high quality of the goods.

The US Secret Service investigation has taken agents around the world but it is believed they have yet to succeed in detecting the whereabouts of the master forger and his new centre of operations. His secrets are protected by former spies who are as sophisticated in their counter- surveillance techniques as any experts produced by the West.

The Secret Service has turned up a bewildering range of figures used by the counterfeiting ring: from a quiet middle-aged couple living in a Paris suburb to a former Australian trade unionist believed to have been heavily involved in distributing the fake bills through the Far East.

One of the first detected notes appeared in the Philippines in the late 1980s. The Worcester Crown Court case heard that most of the forgeries reaching England were brought in by members of the Official IRA. But, to date, no major moves have been made against suspects here.

Gardai are understood to know about the involvement of a number of figures and have been assisting the US authorities. However, they also believe the counterfeit ring has been careful to ensure that none of their crimes can be traced back to Ireland.

WILLIE KEALY and JEROME REILLY