Tons of Hundred Dollar Bills Sent to Iraq

Update: 10/23/14:  Nobody really looks at this blog.  I'm not surprised.  I write it entirely for myself to record things that interest me.  To formalized my examination of them, the thoughts they generate.
The blog gets hits.  Mostly junk hits, some the random hit on a google search term, etc.  However, this entry, which is old now, has been getting hits.  

Interesting.

There is so much more to this story.  I spent months researching it and the traceability of the 100 dollar bills nd reducing it to documentation and speculation.  What tracing them would reveal.  I actually did tracing at various US locations.  Maybe the real story about billions in hundred dollars bills will forever be secret.  However, it is not like scattering feathers in the wind.  Each one had a number and that put the tracing problem detective work in a data domain to discover what the secret story of where they went, what they did might be revealed.  Perhaps the time and effort I put in on this and what I discovered contributed greatly to my concepts for a serialized, digitized virtual dollar that is totally traceable to the account of a owner and has a history or ownership change that can be data mined either within an anonymized or surveillance system.

Where did tons of 100 dollar bills shipped to Iraq go?  They are still floating around today and it is a fact that every single one of those hundred dollar bills has a serial number starting with the letters "CB"

Why is it that 100 dollar bills starting with the letters CB are not popular in

The New York Federal Reserve Bank sent billions of dollars to Iraq in the form of tons of palletized 100 dollar bills.   The billions in 100 dollar bills sent to Iraq represented transfer to Iraq of funds belonging to Iraq but held by the NYFRB in an account for Iraq.  A total of about 12 billion dollars worth of 100 dollar bills were sent to Iraq from the NYFRB vaults.  8 Billion dollars in 100 dollar bills that were sent to Iraq are unaccounted for.  The 100 dollar bills were received by the CPA for Iraq and managed by the CPA prior to turn over of the CPA responsibilities and functions to Iraq in June 2004.  What happened to 8 billion dollars in 100 dollar bills?  Nobody knows.  They are unaccounted for. 

All 100 dollar bills sent to Iraq were serialized.  The serial numbers of all (emphasis: All) 100 dollar bills printed by the Bureau of Printing and Engraving for the NYFRB are given after a few following explanatory statements about the specifics that might identify 100 bills sent to Iraq by serial numbers of the $100 bills.

It is obvious that stocks of $100 bills on hand at the NYFRB prior to June 2004 must have been included in the cash shipments made by the NYFRB to Iraq.

All bills sent by the NYFRB to Iraq were sequentially serialized when produced by the BEP and then shipped by the original unopened pallet loads to Iraq from the NYFRB.


A total of 29 billion in 100 dollar bills were printed by the BEP for the NYFRB from 2002 to 2004.  12 Billion were shipped to Iraq.  (Some of that was in smaller denominations).


Shipments were made in bulk batches therefore if a single serial number of a single bill was known to be shipped to Iraq it is concluded that the entire pallet range of serial numbered bills were shipped.

In general, if anyone in the world had a $100 bill in their possession within the following range of bills printed from 2002 to 2003 there is 50% probability that it once went to Iraq.  Perhaps the frequency with which these bills may be found today is geographically associated.

Why do some places in the world avoid 100 dollar bills with serial numbers beginning in CB.. They are not welcome in Iquitos Peru and generally refused in Latin America or Myanmar.

Perhaps it is not just the counterfeit myth but the use of "lost in Iraq" bills by some agency for tracing purposes.  Most recently there are a number of stories related to CB serial number bills in Myanmar.  Previously stories related to Pakistan.


Total BEP Monthly Production Reports of all $100 bills produced for the NYFRB, data taken from the BEP website:


October 2002
$100.00 2001 CB 86,400,001 A -- CB 99,200,000 C 12,800,000 $1.2 Billion
$100.00 2001 CB 1 D CB 25,600,000 D 25,600,000 $2.56 Billion

November 2002
$100.00 2001 CB 25,600,001 D CB 96,000,000 D 70,400,000 $7.04 Billion

December 2002
$100.00 2001 CB 96,000,001 D - CB 99,200,000 D 3,200,000 $320 Million
$100.00 2001 CB 1 E CB 67,200,000 E 67,200,000 $6.72 Billion

Janurary 2003
$100.00 2001 CB 67,200,001 E CB 99,200,000E 32,200,000 $3.22 Billion
$100.00 2001 CB 1 F CB 19,200,000F 19,200,000 $1.92 Billion

February 2003
$100.00 2001 CB 19,200,001 F CB 83,200,000 F 64,000,000 $6.4 Billion

Next production batch after CPA turnover:
July 2004
$100.00 2003N DB 1 A DB 32,000,000 A 32,000,000 $3.2 Billion

Look at the total value of bills produced.  This is what the NYFRB had on hand to ship.  It was all palletized, sequentially serialized by within every pallet.  About 20 billion.  12 billion shipped to Iraq.  The rest perhaps to other foreign countries as well as internal US distribution.

These bills were still around.  I found a dozen of them from the production serial range in Sierra Vista, AZ.  Even a couple in my home town bank.


From the Waxman hearing 21 June 2005:

Mr. KUCINICH. Is it within your jurisdiction to provide this com-
mittee with the serial numbers that came through Federal Re-
serve—I take it these were new $100 bills—to provide this commit-
tee with the information with respect to any list on which those se-
rial numbers have turned up on coming back through Customs,
who held those serial numbers? Do we have that?
Mr. BOWEN. No, we do not. And we have not—the measures that
I have described have not produced findings, so to speak.

Mr. KUCINICH. I thank the Chair.
Mr. Bowen, I would like to explore a little bit more about this
cash environment. We know from Mr. Waxman’s testimony that
the administration transferred from New York to Baghdad more
than $281 million individual currency notes on 484 pallets that in-
cluded more than 107 million $100 bills, and he put up on the
screen what the Federal officials called cash packs, pictures of
them, and each one of these cash packs contained 16,000 bills. One
cash pack with $100 bills is worth $1.6 million, and the Federal
Reserve shipped more than 19,000 of these cash packs to Iraq. You
agree substantially with that description, correction?
Mr. BOWEN. Yes, I do.