Counterfeiting (Full Episode) | Trafficked with Mariana Van Zeller

[Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] is me [Music] every city has its secrets lima is no different over the last decade a new criminal enterprise has taken root but how they work and who they are is a mystery to me and i'm not the only one looking for them this footage is from the peruvian national police who have turned up the heat and turned lima into the front lines in the war on counterfeiting that's how i landed here at lurigancho prison one of the most dangerous prisons in all of south america the peruvian national police tipped me off to a counterfeiter they recently nabbed and then they'd been chasing for years he's wearing a mask for two reasons he doesn't want to be known as a snitch in prison and he doesn't want his young daughter to know that he's locked up he's told her that he's taken a job abroad incredibly it's estimated that sixty percent of all fake u.s bills are produced in peru armada he says it was an informant that ultimately got him busted by the police but the hunt for this man actually began 3 500 miles north [Music] two weeks earlier i paid a visit to the secret service the agency we associate with these guys in crisp suits protecting the president is also in charge of protecting our money when fakes are detected anywhere in the world they're sent here for the monetary equivalent of an autopsy i watch as analysts examine each of the bill's component parts the paper the ink the colors within each fake hides clues about its origin telltale markers are discovered the chemical makeup of a certain ink or the density of a certain paper stock each bill then gets catalogued helping the secret service identify the world's biggest players in the counterfeit game what happened in the early 2000s the first peruvian produce note started popping up and in peru there were no counterfeit laws at the time it just caught her by surprise that it started there this field agent wants to remain anonymous for safety reasons he tells me the agency first opened a lima office in 2012 because the counterfeit scene was booming these guys are artists the workmanship's there and then the skills are there it's being produced at high numbers and very high quality tonight the real cost of fake money officers want everyone to be on the lookout after a batch of bad bills has turned up in the city another counterfeit money bust in limestone county when it comes to counterfeiting it's pretty much crime that hurts everybody from nations economies to businesses to your mom-and-pop stores things that are being passed that are worthless you're at the bank and they see it look at you you're the criminal it's almost like a mugging that you didn't know happened [Music] we tend to think of black markets as a world apart but the truth is they're all around us hidden in plain sight difficult to see until someone lets you in that's especially true when tracking this counterfeiting story in lima the leads are literally everywhere seemingly everyone has been a victim of fake bills with the walls of some shops looking like a gallery for the city's criminal artisans in a cash society like peru anywhere money changes hands is an opportunity for a counterfeiter [Music] and nowhere does more money change hands than here among limas cambistas or street side money changers sometimes it's the customer trying to slip fake bills to the cambista and sometimes it's the other way around the vistas the the man is changers i never go to those you never know what's real and what's fake it's a very murky world put it away i contact my friend fernando lucena he's a local investigative journalist who said he could get me in touch with one of these crooked cambistas the man i'm meeting is akin to a neighborhood drug dealer he's my entry point to the underworlds i'm hopeful he might introduce me to some of the bigger players in the game the ones moving millions in fake bills into the u.s is [Music] [Laughter] you just asked me if i was a buyer if i was an undercover buyer he's gonna show us some of the fake dollars that he sells let's play with this looks pretty great to me though this sounds like money to me no pull the bill out turn it over feel it there's texture it's rough and smooth there's a watermark security thread layers and layers of detail each element presents a new challenge for counterfeiters but the better their handiwork the more they can charge and the more their services will be in demand so touch look and turn we all have intimate relationships to money we chase it we spend it we save it we make big life decisions because of it and yet it's so common i've never really looked at it the best fake bills are so exquisitely crafted they aren't noticed at all um [Music] before the money changer left he confirmed what the secret service told me in dc that once the designs for the fake bills have been produced there are essentially three key positions in any counterfeiting operation the printer who is the master artisan in charge of bill production the finisher who adds the necessary texture and polish to the bills to make them passable and the barrier who transports the fake cash out of the country i want to find all three something an outsider has never done before it's the best way for me to fully understand the inner workings of this black market and the circumstances and motivations of the people who run it [Music] enter another of my contacts a local producer who shares a nickname with peru's national dish ceviche over the last several years he's been building connections in lima's underworld specifically through a man we'll call diego ceviche tells me that the counterfeiting racket in lima is run by a handful of families and diego's gotten tight with one of them each of these families controls underground workshops where old school offset printers churn out sheets after sheet of fake bills criminal organizations bound by blood are notoriously difficult to penetrate getting inside one of these operations especially with cameras is next to impossible in this business there are always risks but i felt okay with a daytime meeting hopefully somewhere public that is assuming they call three hours pass and still nothing from diego [Music] when the adrenaline kicks in i know things are about to get good [Music] we're on our way to meet with a gang of peruvian counterfeiters in one of the shadier neighborhoods in lima [Music] they're waiting for us already with the location change we'll be late to the meeting part of me wonders if these guys are looking for an excuse to bail on us mema's counterfeiters are extra skittish these days i would be too if i was being hunted there have been a series of huge busts recently including one only days before we arrived that intercepted five million dollars in fake bills the peruvian national police gave us this footage it wasn't at all what i'd expected i'd imagine these counterfeiting operations happening in warehouses or factories and dark corners of the city but much of it seems to be happening in residential neighborhoods on quiet streets inside garages hidden in plain sight [Music] okay for obvious reasons we couldn't record this initial meeting but let me tell you how it all went down i've been on a lot of these underworld first dates over the last 15 years [Music] you never know exactly what you're walking into [Music] at an outdoor cafe diego introduces us to the boss and his bodyguard who is covered in tattoos one on his arm reads in english only god can judge me the mood is tense suspicious as i always do in these situations i order beers [Music] soon after i'm sharing my unofficial resume photos on my phone of me hanging out with men like these from all around the world then the food arrives more talk more drinks i then explain that i've heard they're the most talented counterfeiters in the world you'd be surprised how many doors flattery can open i knew i'd passed the test when the bodyguard gave me a nickname he pointed at me from across the table and said mirena my queen you're gonna see amazing things tomorrow night in any city there are people who play by the rules and people who don't usually it's hard to tell the difference finding my way into the criminal underworld is always an adventure that's why i love what i do it's also knowing that once you're in you get to witness what very few outsiders ever do a universe governed by its own laws and power structures that teaches us a whole lot about our own systems [Music] okay game time [Music] [Music] foreign oh in peru like many places in central and south america gringos is synonymous with americans in this case the counterfeiters are on guard that any gringos could be secret service agents trying to infiltrate their operations [Music] [Music] hello they've told us to meet them here at a downtown park ironically only blocks from the palace of justice somewhere in these surrounding buildings fake money is being made they've set two rules only the crew they met with are allowed inside and once inside we stay the entire shift from 8pm to 8 am no one leaves i imagine it's a rush to see your net worth growing with every new sheet of bills coming off the press you could print yourself out of debt or into a new car or a new house it's not hard to see the allure or the desperation that would cause someone to enter this line of work one hour no call back from diego two hours diego's phone is off the police [Music] things aren't looking good [Music] [Music] it's been over three hours and they still they haven't shown up and it's pretty safe to say that you've been stood up no chance this is going to happen tonight there's nothing worse than getting this close and not coming home with a story but giving up isn't an option they are still out there and i'm gonna find them [Music] stories go cold sometimes you can't explain it you make a connection you make plans things seem to be falling into place and then you find yourself staring at your phone for a call that never comes in these moments i always remind myself that nothing's changed the story is still out there somewhere in the city offset printing machines are churning out sheets after sheets of fake dollars is [Music] nothing happens as fast as you want it to this isn't the safest neighborhood so we should try to avoid showing off our cameras but i have faith that another door will open [Music] they were definitely like saucing [Music] until i can find some of these counterfeiters in the wild i lean on the contacts i've already made um [Music] is [Music] [Music] okay so he's showing us how he works [Music] [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] foreign foreign [Music] foreign [Music] is okay seems that everything is in place yeah so far is it good fingers crossed it's 5 am and my initial contact in lima fernando has a new lead on a printer who seems willing to meet with us we've got this meeting set up in a illegal printing operation where we're going to meet a guy supposedly an ink master and finally see what these printing operations look like well cannon can't read it what he's told me is basically keep the team as as small as possible don't call his name in front of anyone just give it a low key [Music] [Applause] [Music] we just want to make actually be absolutely sure that we play by their rules because we want to be able to get this in the bag everybody's anxious and nervous and hoping that this is that this will all go as planned we park outside a shopping mall and wait for word from our contact okay there are two guys walking is that him right that just came out be careful yeah fred if he sees you [Music] okay he's here okay let's go guys [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] and they're just finding big [Music] money it's early morning in lima and the smell of fresh ink is in the air i found my way to a printer who specializes in counterfeit us dollars it's like no underworld scene i've accessed before it's so out in the open that i'm actually nervous for them wow this is incredible this is amazing i mean we're in a printing mall uh it's too early so all the shops are closed so it's the surreal scene where we walk down these corridors and everything was closed and then suddenly there's a bright light here and they're just printing fake money printing is the most daring aspect of fake note production it's loud it's long and it's often done in public locations like this it's also very difficult it takes years to learn the secrets of this trade the inks the paper the machine the process of forging bills is equal parts art and science very few have the right combination of talents this is [Music] this is the beginning of everything they do here every single hundred dollar bill that's done here starts with this metal plate and it's essentially the watermark in the fantasma these plates are made by coveted designers and are critical to the whole operation [Music] check this out all the bills coming out ah the second part is the off-white color of every banknote [Music] so the whole process takes a month and no holy that's a ton of money that is crazy they can make six million dollars for the machine that cost them seven thousand dollars to buy here the later it gets the more nervous the printer becomes we can hear other shops opening voices echoing down the hallway [Music] because you can see the 100 bills here the metal plate so they want to do this process really fast wow check this out this is amazing we've got the watermark the background color of the banknote and now franklin's face yeah okay he's hiding everything they heard there's somebody walking down the corridors home soon we have to go [Music] as we head for our van it hits me that what surprised me most about the printer is something that also surprised me about the prisoner they were both conflicted about their decision to get into counterfeiting but both realized that perfecting their craft was the best way to stay in demand [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] once the bills come off the printer there's still work to be done to make a convincing fake fernando is able to locate another of peru's finest underworld artisans the finisher his role is to add texture and weight to the bills so they will pass the touch look and turn test we're driving to villa el salvador on the south side of lima an area that locals describe as picante meaning hot hot with every criminal enterprise you can imagine the cops call it because murder rate is not particularly low [Music] he's going to show us the stuff that he just got so it's a sponge regular this is for cutting the notes to make a straight [Music] is a u.s spends millions and millions of real dollars to deter counterfeiting and these counterfeiters get around it with school supplies in an effort to look less conspicuous we plan to meet back up in his workshop [Music] we sneak in our cameras in bags i wonder if his neighbors have any idea what's happening inside this room if they only knew my search for the makers of the finest counterfeit bills in the world has brought me to this working-class neighborhood outside of lima [Music] and to this man they call him the finisher and his skills are in high demand [Music] it's a painstaking process all done by hand with a popsicle stick he applies glue for weight and texture to get the field just right he adds what he calls english cornstarch which [Music] good you can really feel the texture it's changed it's amazing he says he also works on hundreds and fifties but twenties are easier to fake and much less scrutinized with just a few items you can get at any corner store and a whole lot of patience the touch sound and smell of the bills are totally convincing is foreign [Music] um [Music] it's always fascinating to me how people end up working in black markets in many ways counterfeiting is just another crime of opportunity a driver by day discovers he has the extraordinary patience and craftsmanship to finish bills by night a printer specializing in calendars and business cards realizes he can deploy the same machines and skills to produce stacks and stacks of fake bills but all the time and work that goes into making a convincing fake is worthless if those bills don't reach the legal economy and that's where this man comes in they call him the burier a peruvian mash-up formed from the spanish word buro meaning donkey and the word courier [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] facebook counterfeiting networks know that some portion of their shipments will be confiscated so they employ an army of ants who transport fake bills into the u.s by airplane by car by boat on foot they even ship fake bills through the mail but getting these fake bills into the country isn't enough they need to get them into circulation the counterfeiting game is all about getting might do is at changed shopping centers going down a highway corridor you can hit malls on the north side of town and malls on the south side of town one fast food place one convenience store you just spend you know eight nine dollars and then you pay with 100 and that means you're coming back with you know 90 some dollars of genuine real money yeah you could you know pocket a thousand dollars by the end of the day and you're not really doing much it's like an atm that doesn't belong to you when counterfeiters do get busted their stash of fake bills gets sent to the secret service where they're examined catalogued used in prosecution and then destroyed some of these fake bills are probably from peru maybe they even pass through the hands of the guys i met but even if the lima scene is shut down there will be others m [Music] it's an old con and an old truth if you're desperate enough to make some money one option is to make some money [Music] you

Channel: National Geographic

Views: 1,964,703

Keywords: national geographic, nat geo, natgeo, animals, wildlife, science, explore, discover, survival, nature, culture, documentary, perpetual planet nat geo, photography, full episode, trafficked with mariana van zeller, mariana van zeller, national geographic channel, mariana van zeller full episodes, trafficked with mariana van zeller full episode, counterfeiting, counterfeiting operations, us secret service, national geographic full episodes

Id: XYzJBJi_5S0

Length: 47min 22sec (2842 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 16 2022