Pubdate: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 Source: State, The (SC) Copyright: 2001 The State Contact: http://www.thestate.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/426 Author: Andrew J Glass, Cox News Service NEW CASH WOULD GIVE BAD GUYS A HARD TIME Europol, the European police office, has put a new wrinkle on an old mission: flushing out criminal syndicates that stash large amounts of cash. A similar plan aimed at narco-crooks could work on this side of the Atlantic, too. Come Jan. 1, the European Union will adopt a common currency. Over the next two months, 15 billion bank notes worth about $580 billion will be pumped into circulation in 12 of the union's 15 member nations. After a 60-day grace period, all these nations' current bills will be worthless. To deter counterfeiters, the European Central Bank has held off making public details of the new bank notes' features. But it's known that euros will be color-coded by denomination. Obliging everyone to turn in their cash or lose out affects the bad guys, too. "It's a chance to catch these people, but also to learn something about their organizations," said Winfried Preuss, director of the counterfeiting and financial crimes division of Germany's federal police. As Americans are aware, the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing has also recently swapped new notes for old. A redesigned $100 bill was released in 1996, followed by new $50s in 1997 and a new $20 in 1998. Last year brought fresh $5s and $10s with revised portraits of Abraham Lincoln and Alexander Hamilton. The traditional $1 and $2 bills (George Washington and Thomas Jefferson) have remained in circulation. The Treasury assumes that the cost of illegally duplicating these bills on $100,000 top-quality laser printers would offer criminal enterprises a poor return on investment. Newly issued U.S. bills include a host of high-tech security-minded changes. There's a watermark, based on the same artwork as the portraits, that's visible when held up to a light. Color-shifting ink makes the numbers in the lower-right corner on the front of the notes look green when viewed straight on, but black when viewed at an angle. But the powers that be in Washington have decreed that there'll be no recall or devaluation of any bygone bills. "Old or new, all U.S. currency always will be honored at full face value," the Treasury declares. That notion may be comforting to overseas drug merchants who, working through bankers willing to turn a blind eye, strive to convert their ill-gotten European currencies into dollars before the euro whistle blows their cash dead. But is it good public policy? Nowadays, most large U.S. enterprises deal in electronic fund transfers, making all but obsolete traditional-style corporate paychecks, let alone pay packets stuffed with cash. Even mom-and-pop outfits increasingly sense the benefits of electronic banking. It's therefore reasonable to assume that the big loser in a phased-in mandatory swap to color-coded U.S. dollars would be people who would have a hard time explaining how they happened to come by their current hoards of green money.