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Business Words in the News

INTRO  		The authorities in Colombia have broken up a sophisticated counterfeiting ring which they say produced millions of forged United States dollars. Police said they had arrested thirteen people in the city of Medellin and seized printing machines capable of producing almost perfect dollars and currency from four Latin American countries. Our business reporter Mark Gregory looks at how the counterfeiting of banknotes has become a world-wide problem.
IN FULL   
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US Dollar30th March 2001

Dollar counterfeit ring broken

NEWS 1  
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Central banks around the world fight a never ending battle against fake banknotes. One tactic is to constantly change the design of legal tender. In Britain for example there's a new twenty pound note that features a picture of the composer Edward Elgar. He was chosen over the novellist Jane Austen because his face was held to be more difficult to copy. Bank notes feature protective devices that make them hard to fake - including use of special papers, complex printing processes, watermarks and invisible security features detectable to bank counting machines. The two main production centres for counterfeit banknotes are Colombia, which is the source of around a third of fake US dollars in circulation, and Hong Kong.

WORDS 
 

fake - not real, a copy

tactic - strategy, plan for action

constantly - at very regular intervals

legal tender - the official money of a country

was held to be - was thought to be

watermarks - marks and designs put into paper when it is made

in circulation - in use


NEWS 2  
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Inevitably, it's the world's leading currency, the United States dollar, that is most frequently faked. Experts say dollars are relatively easy to forge. The notes have fewer embedded security features than other major currencies, and how they look has hardly changed in decades. Within the US, currency fraud is seen as a manageable issue. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has a large department dedicated to combatting it. There are harsh and rigorously enforced penalties for anyone caught. Experts say the main problem with fake dollar bills comes outside the US, especially in parts of Latin America where the dollar has formally or informally taken over from the local currency.

WORDS   

currency - the monetary unit of a country is its currency: for example - the curreny of the United States is the dollar

to forge - to make an illegal copy to use as if it were the real thing

embedded - built into the design

a manageable issue - a problem that it is possible to deal with

harsh - very strong

rigorously enforced penalties - punishments which are strictly used

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