# The counterfeit dollar trade

> **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou.
>
> Cite as: "The counterfeit dollar trade," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-counterfeit-dollar-trade/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*John Kiriakou's account of high-quality counterfeit US currency — the Swiss paper that makes it possible, an estimate that five to ten percent of the notes in circulation may be forged, and a quiet policy of buying up caches at thirty cents on the dollar and incinerating them.*

In an April 2025 interview Kiriakou was put a long-circulating story about Saddam Hussein: that Iraq had used the Shah's offset presses to print vast quantities of American currency, intending to flood the market and undermine the dollar. Kiriakou answered that the parallel stories about Iraq were both true, and described the American counter-measure to the currency problem in Iraq — the United States printed billions and billions of Iraqi dinars and simply dropped them out of airplanes, so that people would scoop them up and the Iraqi economy would crash.[1]

## The paper, not the printing

Put to him that Iraqi forgeries had never matched the quality of North Korean or Hezbollah product, Kiriakou agreed and explained why. It is all about the paper. The paper is produced in Switzerland, and if a forger can either obtain the Swiss paper or match it, then the printing is the easy part.[2]

## How much is out there

Asked what share of American currency in circulation is high-quality counterfeit, Kiriakou said he had heard figures as high as five or ten percent, a number he called astronomical even as he repeated it. He did not claim the estimate as his own and did not source it further.[3]

He added a detail he described as a quiet but real policy of the second Trump administration: paying thirty cents on the dollar for caches of counterfeit currency found around the world, and incinerating what it buys, simply to take the notes off the street.[3]

The interviewer offered a competing British estimate of nearly fourteen percent attributed to an MI6 acquaintance; Kiriakou did not endorse that number, and the account of a deliberate Iraqi plan to announce a flood of counterfeit dollars belongs to the interviewer rather than to him.[3]

## See also

- [Saddam Hussein](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/saddam-hussein)
- [Iraq WMD intelligence](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/iraq-wmd-intelligence)

## Sources

1. Ex-CIA and Founder of Panquake John Kiriakou EP531 (2025-04-19), at 31:02. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aud37ddfab6&t=1862s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-04-19-the-big-mig-show-ex-cia-and-founder-of-panquake-john-kiriakou/
2. Ex-CIA and Founder of Panquake John Kiriakou EP531 (2025-04-19), at 32:02. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aud37ddfab6&t=1922s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-04-19-the-big-mig-show-ex-cia-and-founder-of-panquake-john-kiriakou/
3. Ex-CIA and Founder of Panquake John Kiriakou EP531 (2025-04-19), at 32:32. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aud37ddfab6&t=1952s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-04-19-the-big-mig-show-ex-cia-and-founder-of-panquake-john-kiriakou/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-counterfeit-dollar-trade/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt