US embassy cable - 04GUAYAQUIL937

UNCLAS GUAYAQUIL 000937 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: EFIN, KFRD, EC, Economy 
SUBJECT: COUNTERFEITING OF US CURRENCY IN ECUADOR 
RELATIVELY INSIGNIFICANT 
 
1. On July 29 Guayaquil Consul General and Central Bank 
General Supervisor Mauricio Pareja Canelos briefed some 
150 bank and media representatives on the features of the 
new fifty-dollar bill and its advantages.  Counterfeit 
money, most of which enters the country from Colombia, 
has been a relatively minor problem Pareja told the CG. 
 
2. An analysis, provided to the CG by Pareja, of 
counterfeit currency circulating in Ecuador covering the 
past three semesters revealed that the production of 
false fifty-dollar bills has fluctuated. However, with 
the arrival of this new bill, the Ecuadorian government 
is anticipating a steady decline. From the second 
semester of 2003 to the first semester of 2004 the amount 
of false one-dollar bills and twenty-dollar bills showed 
a considerable increase: one-dollar bills rose from 3,606 
to 6,691 and twenty-dollar bills more than tripled, from 
2,628 to 9,809. This dramatic increase suggests that the 
release of the new twenty-dollar bill in October 2003 has 
not yet contributed to a reduction in counterfeit 
production. In contrast, over the same time period 
counterfeit bills of all other denominations declined: 
five-dollar bills falling from 10,823 to 7,479; ten- 
dollar bills from 11,555 to 6,132; fifty-dollar bills 
from 59 to 26; and one hundred-dollar bills from 1,208 to 
957. According to the Central Bank the total number of 
false US bills encountered in Ecuador over the past three 
semesters was forty thousand units, which the bank 
considers to be relatively minor. 
 
HERBERT