The zero banknote looks identical to Indian banknotes, though it has no worth.

Fifth Pillar, an Indian charity that confronts corrupt officials, has issued a zero banknote as a way to protest ongoing bribery and extortion in the country.

The notes have no value, but look identical to Indian banknotes and carry the slogans “Eliminate corruption at all levels” and the pledge “I promise to neither accept nor give bribe.”

“The note is a way for any human being to say no to corruption without the fear of facing an encounter with persons in authority,” the charity said in a statement.

Indian citizens are often faced with corruption when they are forced to pay cash bribes for everyday tasks like registering cars or homes, and getting Internet connections hooked up.

Fifth Pillar claims £3 billion is paid each year in bribes in India, but insiders believe the figure is considerably higher, and that several leading politicians have become billionaires through corruption.

The idea for the zero banknote came from an Indian physics professor at the University of Maryland in the US who says he “was sickened by the corruption he witnessed in India and wanted to give people the means to protest against the bribes they were expected to pay. “

Fifth Pillar’s president Vijay Anand took up the professor’s idea of a banknote which had no value, producing 25,000 notes initially, their popularity leading to the production of one million more notes. And the simple protest is catching on.

The World Bank blog tells the story of an elderly woman who was being bribed to obtain documentation of a land title and instead handed the Revenue Department official one of Fifth Pillar’s zero banknotes. “Remarkably, the official stood up from his seat, offered her a chair, offered her tea and gave her the title she had been seeking for the last year and a half to obtain without success,” the blog reports.

Though commonplace, bribery is a crime that is punishable with jail time in India. The World Bank says these zero banknotes are effectively making a strong statement condemning bribery. By providing the support of an organization, Fifth Pillar has given citizens the courage to stand up and no longer be afraid of the criminal practices.

“For people to speak up against corruption that has become institutionalized within society, they must know that there are others who are just as fed up and frustrated with the system,” says the World Bank on their blog. Once they realize that they are not alone, they also realize that this battle is not unbeatable. Then, a path opens up—a path that can pave the way for relatively simple ideas like the zero rupee notes to turn into a powerful social statement against petty corruption.”

SOURCES:
Digital Journal: “Indian charity issues worthless banknote to highlight corruption”
Telegraph: “India ‘issues’ zero rupee banknotes”
The World Bank: “Paying zero for public services”

As this image shows, an RFID device is embedded in the passport making it "electronic"

From news of the technologically advanced New Zealand passports, to the recent multi-million dollar contract awarded to Vancouver-based Fortress Paper to produce over two million ePassports over the next five years, the shift to electronic passports is happening on a global scale.

What makes ePassports “electronic” is Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) – a small electronic device embedded in the passport consisting of a small chip and an antenna that allow passport information to be transmitted via radio signals.

Serving the same purpose as a barcode or the magnetic strip on the back of a credit card, an RFID provides a unique identifier for a passport allowing only those who scan the document – like a border guard or an airport attendant – to retrieve the confidential information it holds.

Unlike barcodes and credit cards, however, an RFID device doesn’t need to be scanned at a close proximity and requires no contact with another device.  Some high-frequency RFID devices, like those found in some US passports, can be scanned from up a distance of up to 33 feet.

ePassports contain all the same information as non-electronic passports – name, date of birth, sex, place of birth, nationality, etc – but also have the capability to include biometric information like fingerprint, facial, DNA, and iris recognition. Digital signature technology verifies the authenticity of the data stored on the chip.

As of October 2009, over 79 countries had introduced biometric passports and over 100 million ePassports had been issued globally. With over 70 million new ePassports being issued every year, it is estimated that over the next ten years, most of the 750 million passports currently in use will be replaced by electronic passports.

SOURCES:
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Technology-Article.asp Technovelgy.com: “What is RFID?”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio-frequency_identification Wikipedia: “Radio-frequency identification”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biometric_passport#New_Zealand Wikipedia: “Biometric passport”
http://globalpapersecurity.com/fortress-paper-announces-epassport-contract-and-an-update-on-the-planned-production-increase-at-its-landqart-mill.htm Global Paper Security: “Fortress Paper Announces ePassport Contract…”

New Jersey issued this six-pound note in 1761, during the French and Indian War. It warned "To counterfeit is Death," because counterfeiting was deemed a capital offense. Courtesy History.org

*This article is the first in a three-part series on counterfeiting.

The act of counterfeiting is as old as money itself. Plaguing ancient Rome, empirical China, newborn America, and many other nations over the past 2500 years, the illegal activity came hand in hand with the creation of money.

Even prior to the invention of coin and paper currency, counterfeiting was a popular form of trickery. In Prehispanic Mexico, for example, Cacao traders would extract the contents of the bean and substitute the valuable innards of the plant with soil.

In the ancient world, of course, currency was invented hundreds of years before these Mexican ruses. Real currency made its debut in the form of coins around 700 B.C. and counterfeiting soon followed. Coins had not yet been marked or etched with images or slogans, so reproducing coins out of less valuable metal was easy.

The problem became so severe in places like ancient Rome, that “it was considered treasonous and punishable by death if the perpetrator was caught. This was because many believed that anyone who disturbed the market with fake money was putting the nation’s economy and its general stability and strength in serious jeopardy.”

Those sentiments were echoed by the Chinese upon the invention of paper money, which appeared on the global currency scene during the Yuan Dynasty in the 13th Century. In order to prevent counterfeiting, “the Emperor ordered that the following be printed on all banknotes: ‘Counterfeiting shall be punished by death. Informers shall receive 250 taels of silver and the criminal’s property.’”

Throughout history, however, counterfeiting has not only come at the hands of criminals. The British government “produced large quantities of bogus assignats to undermine revolutionary France,” and helped the process of devaluating “Confederate paper money by printing it themselves and sending it to the South” in pre-revolution America to the point where Confederate banknotes were almost worthless.

By the end of the eighteenth century, counterfeiting was flourishing. During the Civil War, “one-third to one-half of the currency in circulation was counterfeit.”

Coin counterfeiting had become so advanced in the United States that “when the first federal coins were issued by the US government in the 1780s, they had the dies cut by an ex-counterfeiter in order to deter the practice.”

Paper money in the US was also being easily counterfeited because of merchants’ inexperience with the currency. One historian explains: “Rural colonists were not very familiar with paper money because their daily lives did not revolve around commercial transactions; furthermore, they had a deep prejudice against it because they did not regard it as ‘real’ money. Because merchants lacked familiarity with authentic paper money, they could be fooled by some surprisingly amateurish counterfeits.”

Though anti-counterfeiting measures were being developed throughout the world by the nineteenth century – particularly in America – counterfeiting continued.

One of the most professional cases of counterfeiting was carried out by the Germans in World War II who “had control of expert counterfeiters imprisoned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, and even manufactured very convincing paper, which can be more difficult to forge than a banknote’s appearance.”

The counterfeits produced by the Germans in the first half of the twentieth century were so good in fact that when The Bank of England managed to obtain some falsified British pounds, they said “the only way in which [the fake banknotes] differed from the real thing was that the real thing wasn’t as good.”

Today, thanks to modern advances in scanning and printing technology, counterfeiting paper banknotes is perhaps easier than ever. Because of this, security features are becoming an – if not the most – important part of banknote design.

In Part 2 of Counterfeiting: A Three-Part Series, we will take a look at the history of security features and identify how different security features have evolved over time to prevent counterfeiting.

SOURCES:
“History of Counterfeit Money”
“A Short History of Money”
“History of Counterfeiting”
“History of Counterfeiting”
“The History of Counterfeit in Russia”
“The Golden Age of Counterfeiting”
“History of Counterfeiting in Mexico”

A watermark in a Durasafe bill helps prevent counterfeiting. (Courtesy FOXNews.com)

Counterfeiting has never been easier. All it takes these days is a fairly inexpensive color printer, some graphic design software and a willingness to spend a few decades in jail if you get caught.

But desperate times call for desperate measures, so criminals struggling in a tough economy and savvy with advanced printing equipment have figured out how to replicate bank notes. Some bleach $1 bills and print $100 bills; others use holographic wrapping paper available at any dollar store. And it’s not just the little guy. The big guys — the major crime syndicates — have set up complex printing operations to print illegal tender in large quantities.

Fake bills look remarkably similar to the real McCoy, with intaglio (textured printing) and holographic markings.

“Internationally, we have seen a marked increase in counterfeiting in the last five years,” says Bonnie Schwab, a consultant who worked for the Bank of Canada and has advised the Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group. “Causes are improvement in technology available to the general public and to the traditional counterfeiters. More and more people with little skill in design and printing are able to download images and print to desktop printers.”

Because your basic inkjet printer is constantly improving in output quality, the best way to combat counterfeiting is not to create increasingly intricate designs, but rather to improve the paper it’s printed on.

Security fibers like these are embedded in bills from Fortress Paper.

One approach is to make the printing process and substrate — the layer beneath the surface of the paper — more complex and difficult to replicate, even for the pros.

Polymer-based currency, first developed in Australia, has become common and is harder to counterfeit. In 2008, Crane Currency started using a “nano thread” for $100 bills that allows the Bureau of Engraving and Priting to embed new security features, including a strip that becomes visible only when you hold the C-note up to the light.

The U.S. Treasury has taken other measures, including the new $5 bill with its color-shifting ink, an embedded watermark, and a different color that glows for each bill when you hold it up to an ultraviolet light source. Yet according to Schwab, because U.S. bills are so popular all over the world, they are a prime target for counterfeiters, and given enough time and the right technology, criminals tend to learn even the most advanced techniques.

A new option — announced at the Bank Note 2009 Conference in Washington last week — is a hybrid paper called Durasafe, which uses a three-layer substrate made with a polymer core and a 100-percent cotton outer layer.

Made by from Fortress Paper, Durasafe’s major advancement is a transparent window that can be any shape and size. Criminals have a hard time replicating these windows because of the complex printing process involved.

“Durasafe uses two substrates with a window in between, so that rules out printers and advanced color copier machines,” says Russell Stanley, a financial analyst with Jennings Capital.

Chad Wasilenkoff, the CEO of Fortress Paper, says Durasafe is also designed to last twice as long as traditional banknote paper, which is an attractive option for national banks — especially in the U.S. where, he says, there are as many as 1 million fake bills in circulation. Durasafe-based currency will stay in circulation longer and, Wasilenkoff says, the printing costs will be similar to traditional banknotes.

“Durasafe acts like a sponge for the polymer and improves the tactility of the bank note,” says Wasilenkoff, who explained why the touch and feel of a banknote are important for the “level one” security concern, meaning the first point of contact that criminals make. In most cases, counterfeiters pass fake bills off at nightclubs and McDonald’s or Starbucks in a chaotic or low-light environment. When a bill just doesn’t feel right, the cashier might take the time to inspect the currency.

Vancouver-based Fortress would not comment on which countries may end up using the bills, due to security concerns. But the company says the first mass-produced banknotes that use Durasafe will appear in late 2010.

–By John Brandon, FOXNews.com

SOURCE:
FOXNews.com: “The Dollar Bill Goes High-Tech”

Fortress Paper President & CEO, Chad Wasilenkoff, on BNN. Click to watch.

Fortress Paper’s President & CEO, Chad Wasilenkoff, talks to the Business News Network (BNN) about his company’s focus on non-woven wallpaper & security paper, and speaks about upcoming innovations at their Landqart Mill in Switzerland.

Watch the BNN clip HERE, or by clicking on the image to the right.

In one of the largest coordinated busts in recent Canadian history, more than 400 police officers moved through Ontario and Quebec to arrest suspects in a counterfeit passport ring.

Twenty-nine people were arrested in the inter-provincial raids as a joint police force of officers from the RCMP, the Sûreté du Québec and Montreal police targeted 39 locations in Laval, Longueuil, Blainville, Toronto and Montreal.

The Globe and Mail reports “Montreal has been a hotbed for trade in fake Canadian passports” during the past decade.

The bust comes on the heels of the Canadian government’s recent decision not to beef up security on Canadian passports.

The Toronto Sun reported last week:

“A federal privacy watchdog has rejected Passport Canada’s plan to embed fingerprints and iris scans in electronic passports.

In a review of the project, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner told the passport office not to include new biometric information on a radio frequency chip encoded in e-passports.

‘The more information you collect, the more information you put at risk,’ said assistant privacy commissioner Chantal Bernier.”

Though Passport Canada is expected to start introducing electronic biometric passports – without fingerprints and iris scans – in 2011, security features on current Canadian passports are lagging behind the technological advances around in passport security worldwide.

The Canadian passport uses microprinting, holographic images, UV-Visible imaging, and watermarks to avoid fraud, but compared to New Zealand’s new passport, for example, that uses an embedded microchip containing the holder’s biometric information and digitized photograph as well as incorporates passport paper with a different design on each page, the Canadian document is much easier to reproduce.

Over 60 countries use biometric passports worldwide including the United States, Australia, Switzerland and Russia.

SOURCES:

Examiner.com: “29 Arrested in Counterfeit Crackdown”
The Globe and Mail: RCMP Busts Alleged Counterfeiting Ring
Wikipedia: “Canadian Passport”
The Toronto Sun: E-Passports won’t Include Fingerprints”
Stuff.co.nz: “Security Stepped Up in New E-Passport”

Banknote 2009: a four-day conference focusing on emerging trends in the banknote industry.

On December 6, global banknote industry leaders will head to Washington, DC for Banknote 2009 – a four-day conference that brings together the public and private sectors to focus on emerging trends in the banknote industry.

Though the Banknote conference began in 1998 as a specialty event focusing primarily on banknote substrates, it has become more focused in recent years on changing technologies and issues specific to the production, distribution, and security of banknotes.

Presentations at this year’s conference include a large number of security-related topics including presentations on Canadian and US counterfeiting situations and trends, a discussion of safety elements on the new Danish banknote series, and a lecture on improved overt and covert security features for banknotes, among many others.

The Banknote conferences are also a chance for banknote manufacturers, producers, suppliers, etc to discuss and introduce new products to the marketplace. One such company is Fortress Paper.

The international supplier of security and specialty papers is expected to introduce their new polymer banknote paper called Durasafe – a hybrid banknote that is not only highly durable, but also includes a transparent window as a security feature – in DC during the conference.

Banknote 2009 takes place in Washington, DC from Sunday, December 6 to Wednesday, December 9.
For more information visit their website.

SOURCES:
Banknote 2009

An example of what Irisafe looks like when copied. Not so brilliant.

In response to this demand, Fortress Paper has developed Irisafe – a security feature that cannot be duplicated by colour copiers or scanners.

Irisafe is an iridescent striped coating that is integrated into security papers and is characterized by brilliant and changing colours when you change the angle of view.

If an Irisafe stripe were present in a $20 bill, for example, the radiant colours on the stripe would change when you moved the bill at various angles – easily visible to anyone, even in less than optimum light conditions.

To further enhance the security feature, more than one stripe can be used on the same security paper.

By placing two or three different coloured iridescent stripes next to each other, the colour change between the different stripes is amplified and intensified to the naked eye when the angle is changed.

A colour copier cannot reproduce either the brilliancy or the change of colour. At best, a photocopied forgery will show spotty stripes instead of the trademarked Irisafe qualities.

On top of all this, various machine-readable invisible tracer substances and pigments can also be integrated into the stripes, further increasing the safety provided by Irisafe.

This week Fortress Paper Ltd. announced a 52 per cent rise in quarterly profits, showing that while many companies are struggling during this period of economic downturn, they are thriving.

The company – which produces non-woven wallpapers as well as security and specialty papers (such as bank notes) – reported net income of $3.5 million for the third quarter of 2009, an increase of $1.5 million from the same quarter last year. The increase in profits earned shareholders $0.38 per share, up more than ten cents from last year.

Fortress Paper credits a strong quarter in banknote paper sales from its Lanqart mill coupled with consistent positive results at their Dresden mill:
“As the year has progressed it has become apparent that our mills have been able to endure the economic crisis and produce healthy results,” the company said in a press release this week. “The market for security papers, which includes bank notes, passport paper and other high security papers, continues to show strength and our order book for wallpaper base is experiencing its highest level of demand since the economic downturn.”

SOURCE:
Fortress Paper
FORTRESS PAPER ANNOUNCES RECORD THIRD QUARTER 2009

Posted By: T. Murphy