If one were going to counterfeit a circulating currency, the Yemeni Rial seems like it would be among the last choices. A war-torn country with the worst economy in the Middle East and substantial inflation, Yemen’s Rial is not even widely traded internationally, unsurprising given the country is under a Saudi-led blockade which makes commerce all but impossible.
Still, the US Treasury Department is claiming that Iran’s Quds Force engaged in a massive counterfeiting scheme involving the Yemeni rial, and is imposing sanctions on several companies in Iran and Europe claimed to be involved in getting them the equipment to do so.
The amount of money that would have to be counterfeited to make this happen would be absolutely staggering. The Treasury Department claims the Quds Force raised hundreds of millions of dollars, but the highest denomination bill, the 1,000 rial note, is worth less than $4.
It’s not clear how much paper money from Yemen is in circulation overall, but considering that even Yemenis have long preferred other mediums of exchange, hundreds of millions of dollars worth would seemingly have to be a non-trivial portion of the overall money in circulation. This seems an incredibly ill-conceived targeted for counterfeiting at that level, and given the minimal trade Yemen has even in the best of times, it’s hard to image how that much money could be pumped into Yemen without it sticking out like a sore thumb.
Maybe the alternative government in Yemen, the Saleh one, decided it needed banknotes and contracted the printing to the subjects of these sanctions.
BTW, since Hadi, the supposed president of Yemen, was only elected for two years and has announced his own resignation although the US and KSA governments have no accepted it, and he is now under house arrest in Riyadh it’s doubtful that he is the legal president of Yemen.
It’s not altogether surprising he was elected. He was the only candidate. After the expiry of his two years, he resigned not once but twice, and left the country. When Yanukovich fled the Ukraine after several attempts on his life, Washington and Brussels argued that having left the country he had lost any legitimacy as president.
The USA seems to have crossed the line into complete insanity.
America does this all the time – it accuses every country it is demonising and vilifying of counterfeiting currency, usually the $. N. Korea, Iran, Hezbollah are routinely accused of this. In fact this would require an expensive and sophisticated Intaglio printing press. These are very expensive and their supply is controlled. I’m surprised Russia hasn’t been accused of this yet.
In truth the $ is routinely counterfeited by agencies like the CIA, to fund many of their operations of a more dubious nature they don’t want to seek conventional funding for. Counterfeiting and drugs help the Cocaine Import Agency pay for all the dodgy little extras, like election rigging, assassinations, and so much else.