THE CIA COUNTERFEIT CUBAN BANKNOTES

 

A commonly accepted idea is that a series of Cuban banknotes of 1961 with nominal value of twenty pesos were produced by the CIA and given to the members of the Cuban Assault Brigade that attempted to overthrow Fidel Castro during the ill-fated Bay of Pigs Invasion to the island of that year. The topic has been treated with some detail over the years by both, Cuban and foreign specialists. Most sources indicate that each soldier was given approximately one-hundred of these forged notes to be carried to Cuba for purchasing supplies from the peasants and/or bribery (Quesada, 2009; Wayne, 2011). Using essentially the same description, some of these notes have been sold over the years by the most prestigious numismatic auction houses reaching always considerable prices.

While the counterfeit twenty-peso notes closely resemble the authentic ones issued in 1961 by the National Bank of Cuba, they can be easily distinguished from the latter given that they all belong to the series F69 or F70. In each case, the notes can display a serial number or not. As a result, four different varieties of these counterfeits are known to exist.

The present article explains why the generally accepted idea about these counterfeit notes is simply wrong and discloses for the first time evidence essential to understand the true story surrounding the origin and use of the banknotes.

Prior to Fidel Castro's revolution of January, 1959, Cuban currency had been traditionally produced by American companies. Large amounts of these moneys were brought to the United States by the Cubans that left the country after Castro's rise to power. Fearing that the money could be used to destabilize the new government, the National Bank of Cuba enacted on April 7, 1959 the Law number 210 that demonetized the hitherto circulating five-hundred and one-thousand-peso banknotes.

The relations between Cuba and the United States deteriorated rapidly after 1959. The latter sponsored sabotage and violent acts in the island to provoke the fall of the new regime, to which Cuba responded from 1960 with the nationalization of the American-owned companies established in the island. The subsequent economic embargo imposed by the Americans, still in force nowadays, caused the island to look for new partners in the former Communist bloc.

The Bay of Pigs Invasion was a military landing operation covertly financed and directed by the U. S. Government and the CIA. Around 1400 Cuban exiles organised in the so-called Assault Brigade 2506 landed in the southwestern coast of Cuba on April 17, 1961. However, the operation failed and already by April 20 the revolutionary forces were in control of the situation. Most of the invaders were captured (1202 men) whereas 118 men were officially reported dead in action.

Commander Ernesto Guevara had been appointed as President of the Cuban National Bank on November 26, 1959 and a currency reform was carried out between August 5 and 6 of 1961 under his supervision. The Law number 963 signed on August 4 demonetized all previously circulating banknotes in the country and ordered their replacement by the new ones that had just been secretively produced by the State Printing Office of Prague in the former Communistic Republic of Czechoslovakia. The action automatically rendered worthless all the Cuban money that had been extracted from the country and therefore inflicted a heavy blow on the political opponents to the revolutionary process.

A quick look at the dates of the previously referred events already show that it is simply impossible for the men of the Brigade 2506 to have carried the twenty-peso notes to Cuba during the Bay of Pigs Invasion. As mentioned earlier, the notes were only placed in circulation at the beginning of August, 1961. That is, more than three months after the invasion!!

It is a well-known fact that the banknotes had been produced in Prague under great secrecy. Confidentiality was of outmost importance in order to avoid that the large stock of old banknotes held in the United States was sent back to Cuba for exchange. It is also documented that the new notes were only sent to Havana from Prague shortly before the date fixed for the exchange and were kept heavily guarded at all times (Vives, 2007). Thus, the Cuban people only knew about the new banknotes in August, 1961 at the earliest. As a result, the idea accepted up to now that the notes had been carried by the members of the Assault Brigade during the invasion of Bay of Pig held three months earlier to pay and bribe people in the island is obviously not tenable.

In addition to the above, new evidence is presented here for the first time that solves the "mystery" surrounding these counterfeits.

An official report elaborated by the Cuban National Bank on April 22, 1964 specifically refers to these peculiar counterfeits. It was inserted in the main Cuban newspaper of the time and informed the population of the detection of forged twenty-peso notes in circulation having the specifications identified below. The notes corresponded to those issued back in 1961, belonged to any of the F-69 or F-70 series and carried serial numbers higher than 221.000 in both cases. A period of fifteen days was given for the holders to exchange them at the bank offices for authentic ones, after which their possession would be punishable. The report was further accompanied by pictures of a fake and an authentic note for comparison.

The document unambiguously proves that the twenty-peso fake notes of 1961 described above were not used during the Bay of Pigs Invasion but a few years later.

For more information on the Society of Paper Money Collectors, see:
https://www.spmc.org/

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
THE CIA BAY OF PIGS COUNTERFEITS (https://www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v14n52a20.html)

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