Counterfeiting of U.S. dollars is increasing overseas but so far poses no threat to the nation's economy, a congressional report said Tuesday.
The General Accounting Office in a report prepared for a House Banking subcommittee said the exact extent of the counterfeiting problem "is impossible to determine."In fiscal 1994 an estimated $208.7 million of counterfeit currency was in circulation, a fraction of the $380 billion of U.S. currency in circulation, the GAO said.
The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, warned that the estimate was imperfect partly due to problems with detecting new and sophisticated counterfeit dollars.
While Treasury Department and Secret Service officials believe that "overall, counterfeiting was not economically significant, they considered any counterfeiting to be a serious problem," the report said.
Overseas counterfeiting was the focus of a hearing Tuesday of the House Banking oversight and investigations subcommittee. Top officials of the Treasury, Secret Service and Federal Reserve were testifying.
"Extremely sophisticated, near perfect counterfeiting of our money by other countries is an act of aggression," said Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala.
The dollar is particularly susceptible to counterfeiting because it is so widely held overseas. Of the $380 billion of U.S. currency in circulation, the Federal Reserve estimates about 60 percent is overseas.
To combat counterfeiting, the Treasury Department last year unveiled a redesigned $100 bill with new security features aimed at stumping sophisticated counterfeiters. The redesign will affect smaller denominations of currency in the years to come.