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U.S. Secret Service Say’s Thailand Leading Source of Counterfeit US Dollars in Southeast Asia

Police and court officials examine notes from a seized haul of $7.16 million in counterfeit hundred-dollar bills in Battambang, Cambodia Sept 30. Cambodian police seized the fake notes on Sept 19 near the border with Thailand, the largest seizure of fake US notes in Southeast Asia for about a decade and the biggest-ever in Cambodia. (Reuters photo)

Police and court officials examine notes from a seized haul of $7.16 million in counterfeit hundred-dollar bills in Battambang, Cambodia Sept 30. Cambodian police seized the fake notes on Sept 19 near the border with Thailand, the largest seizure of fake US notes in Southeast Asia for about a decade and the biggest-ever in Cambodia. (Reuters photo)

 

BATTAMBANG – Brigadier General Sar Theth is the police chief of Battambang, a languid riverside town in western Cambodia. You could also call him the seven million dollar man.

On Sept. 19, Sar Theth’s officers tracked three Thai men in a pick-up truck as it passed through a remote border checkpoint from Thailand. When the truck stopped in the Cambodian district of Phnom Proek, the police pounced.

Inside, said Sar Theth, they found three cardboard boxes packed with $7.16 million (4.44 million pounds) in counterfeit hundred-dollar bills, the largest seizure of fake U.S. notes in Southeast Asia for about a decade and the biggest ever in Cambodia.

“If I close my eyes and touch it, I wouldn’t know it was fake,” he said, rubbing one of the seized notes between thumb and forefinger at Battambang police headquarters.

According to the U.S. Secret Service, whose agents investigate financial crime worldwide alongside their better-known role as presidential bodyguards, the huge bust points to a well-oiled and growing counterfeit operation in neighboring Thailand, where identical notes had previously been seized.

The alleged involvement of Thai military personnel – the three men arrested were serving or former officers of the Royal Thai Navy – could also embarrass Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha. A former general, Prayuth seized power in a May 22 military coup and has vowed to crack down on organised crime.

The men deny any wrongdoing, and the Thai navy said it was awaiting the conclusion of the investigation before deciding whether to take any action.

There is more than $1 trillion cash in global circulation, three-quarters of it outside the United States, according to the Secret Service. Tackling counterfeiting is key to maintaining the dollar’s credibility as the de facto world currency.

Less than a quarter of 1 percent of that $1 trillion – or about $2.5 billion – are fakes, said J. Kevin Traylor, a Secret Service agent based at the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok.

“For the amount of currency out there, we have very little counterfeiting,” he told Reuters. “That’s why the dollar is trusted.”

By comparison, global losses from credit, debit and prepaid card fraud in 2012 totalled about $11.3 billion, according to the Nilson Report, an industry newsletter.

In South America, where narco-trafficking and counterfeiting often go hand in hand, big seizures of fake bills are not uncommon. In June, the Secret Service helped the Peruvian police arrest a suspected forger along with $4.5 million in fakes.

But such seizures are rare in Southeast Asia. The Cambodian bust could suggest both an upsurge in counterfeiting and better cooperation between the Secret Service and local police.

“TALENTED PEOPLE”

For the Secret Service, seizing notes is secondary to finding the printing presses and shutting them down.

The agency was created in 1865 as a branch of the U.S. Treasury to tackle rampant counterfeiting after the Civil War. It was another 36 years before its agents began protecting presidents, vice-presidents and other VIPs. Even today, most of its 3,200 special agents are busy investigating financial crime.

Traylor, who visited Battambang to inspect the $7.16 million haul in early October, said $1 million of the same “better-than-average” fakes had already been seized in Thailand. One person has been arrested in the Thai investigation.

“It is a note that is starting to be manufactured in larger quantities and our investigation points to Thailand as the origin,” he said. “We will continue our efforts to locate the plant.”

In 2013, with Secret Service help, Thai police made 67 arrests and seized $3.7 million in fake dollars. This year’s tally is already at 76 arrests and $5.6 million seized, not including the Cambodia bust.

The special inks and paper used by the U.S. Treasury to print dollar bills are tightly controlled. This has helped eradicate offset printing of fakes in the United States, where counterfeiters rely on methods such as inkjet printing or colour photocopying.

But offset printing – in which the inked image is “offset” from a plate to a rubber blanket and then onto the paper – is still commonly used outside the United States to produce convincing fakes in greater volume. The process requires expensive inks and presses, as well as skilled

“You need talented people to do this,” said Special Agent Traylor. And time: he reckoned $7.16 million could take perhaps two months to make.

IN THE NAVY

Royal Thai Navy spokesman Rear Admiral Kan Deeubol confirmed to Reuters that the three Thai men arrested on Sept. 19 were serving or former naval officers.

They were arrested after allegedly trying to change fake bills with a Cambodian contact who was actually a police informant, said Battambang police chief Sar Theth.

One of them – Chamras Pongsart, 52, a navy captain – was released after two days. “He was not involved,” said Sar Theth.

The two suspects still in custody are: Pramote Raisiri, 48, described in Thai media reports as a navy sub-lieutenant; and Kittithamet Meethekulsawat, 47, who Rear Admiral Kan said had resigned from the navy before the incident.

“They have not been suspended, because the investigation … is under way and we don’t know if they really committed wrongdoing,” said Kan.

The two Thai suspects have been charged with storing and transporting counterfeit currency, and face between five and 20 years in jail if found guilty. Their Cambodian lawyer, Chim Dara, told Reuters they denied any wrongdoing.

The criminal group making the fakes in Thailand is well-organized and linked to other scams, said Traylor. Ongoing investigations disrupted their operations and forced them “to try Cambodia as a new market”.

The dollar is widely used in Cambodia, and preferred to the domestic riel currency for high-value transactions such as paying rents and salaries.

Elsewhere in the world, criminals often use fake dollars to pay other criminals for narcotics, illegal timber or other contraband.

But Sar Theth said it was “impossible” to shift so many bills on Cambodia’s fake-savvy black market. Even farmers might find the notes suspect, he said, never mind banks or owners of currency-exchange booths.

Chi Kimcheav, 47, a money changer at Battambang market, said she relied on touch to detect fakes, which were often betrayed by poor quality paper. “I’ve been doing this job for many years,” she said. “If someone gave me a fake, I’d know it.”

By Prak Chan Thul, Andrew R.C. Marshall and Amy Sawitta Lefevre / Reuters

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Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

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Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.

According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.

Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.

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Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.

Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.

Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.

To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.

Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.

On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.

In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.

Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

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Pixa Bay

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.

TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.

When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.

And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.

Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.

A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.

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Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.

But today, it feels more like reality.

Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.

Could we remember Google in the same way that we remember Yahoo or Ask Jeeves in decades? These next few years could be significant.

SOURCE | CNN

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2024 | Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

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Washington — Trump Media,  The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will not hear an appeal from social media platform X about a search warrant acquired by prosecutors in the election meddling case against former President Donald Trump.

The justices did not explain their rationale, and there were no recorded dissents.

The firm, which was known as Twitter before being purchased by billionaire Elon Musk, claims a nondisclosure order that prevented it from informing Trump about the warrant obtained by special counsel Jack Smith’s team violated its First Amendment rights.

The business also claims Trump should have had an opportunity to exercise executive privilege. If not reined in, the government may employ similar tactics to intercept additional privileged communications, their lawyers contended.

trump

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

Two neutral electronic privacy groups also joined in, urging the high court to hear the case on First Amendment grounds.

Prosecutors, however, claim that the corporation never shown that Trump utilized the account for official purposes, therefore executive privilege is not a problem. A lower court also determined that informing Trump could have compromised the current probe.

trump

Trump utilized his Twitter account in the weeks preceding up to his supporters’ attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to spread false assertions about the election, which prosecutors claim were intended to create doubt in the democratic process.

The indictment describes how Trump used his Twitter account to encourage his followers to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification, and falsely claiming that the Capitol crowd, which battered police officers and destroyed glass, was peaceful.

musk trump

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

That case is now moving forward following the Supreme Court’s verdict in July, which granted Trump full immunity from criminal prosecution as a former president.

The warrant arrived at Twitter amid quick changes implemented by Musk, who bought the company in 2022 and has since cut off most of its workforce, including those dedicated to combating disinformation and hate speech.

He also welcomed back a vast list of previously banned users, including Trump, and endorsed him for the 2024 presidential election.

SOURCE | AP

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The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

Supreme Court

(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.

The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.

Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.

This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.

In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.

The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.

This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.

The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.

In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.

According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.

Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.

The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.

For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.

Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.

As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.

As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.

The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.

SOURCE: AP

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Could Last-Minute Surprises Derail Kamala Harris’ Campaign? “Nostradamus” Explains the US Poll.

Scientists Awarded MicroRNA The Nobel Prize in Medicine.

US Inflation will Comfort a Fed Focused on Labor Markets.

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