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Iraq Dinar — Get Rich or Scam?
By Sean | May 22, 2010
I’ve just noticed an increase in internet activity about the Iraq Dinar. Back in 2004 / 2005 people were feverishly flogging Iraqi Dinar currency with the sensational story that it was a great buy because the Iraq was devastated and cheap Dinars would become much more valuable once the Iraq economy recovered.
I seriously considered buying some myself but after looking into it decided that with all the publicity about — that was the least likely thing that would happen. In most cases the masses are wrong about currency value and so are most of the experts that report the news about currency. Normally when currency news becomes public any opportunity has already passed by. In the case of the Dinar there were too many variables for it to be anything but a really bad odds gamble.
Regardless I was intrigued today when I heard that people on Ebay are selling Dinars at inflated values amid speculation that Abdul Aziz Hassoun (alternately spelled Abdul-Hussein Abdul Azim) — allegedly a notable expert in the Iraqi banking sector had publicly stated to the Independent Press Association (appears to be a fake Iraqi newspaper) — Said Abdul Aziz Hassoun in contact with the agency, the independent press (Iba) “Many countries have taken action himself, including Turkey, which deleted six zeroes from the currency, and therefore the right of the Iraqi Central Bank could adjust the exchange rate this way, especially since there is a difference large numbers no longer reflects the value of domestic production of Iraq. “
However a search on both of those names in the Economist, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Fox News, Al Jazeera, MSNBC, CNN, and a search on Google, did not turn up this name (or its variations) at all much less an article about him discussing the revaluation of the Dinar. [One exception on Reuters he was said to be head of the Iraq Private Bank Association.]
Please note that I eliminated from my Google Search the few sites dedicated to Dinar speculation because these are the only places quoting this alleged comment and they are all quoting the same source (the Independent which appears to be fake). The reason I say fake is that there are several broken connections on the site, they did not spell English on the tab that converts the news to English, a check of the “history news search” shows news articles dating way way way back to April 15 2010. All of it smells like “new car smell” from a spray can.
Perhaps Abdul actually made such a statement about deleting zeros from the Dinar. However he has no power to alter the price of the Dinar anyway. If the very scarce information about him is true — he is merely head of a private bank association. This may sound impressive to an American because we think in terms of American banking. But a private bank association in Iraq is not going to carry any weight with regard to currency policy in Iraq.
Just to be a little more thorough I ran a search through Metacrawler (submits to a number of major search engines). I found just a tiny bit more but nothing that adds any more substance to this alleged conversation between Abdul and “The Independent”. There is no evidence of it in any major news source anywhere. The only place where I can find it is in places where people who bought a lot of Dinars in 04/05 when that scam was raging through the Internet for a few months. If there was even a whiff of credible news about changes to the Iraq Dinars value it would be found somewhere at Reuters.
What it looks like to me is that the Independent was thrown up quickly in April and probably engineered by someone or a group of people who were looking for a way to create some buzz and unload a bunch of Dinars at inflated values. Maybe even counterfeit ones.
It is humorous if not also sad to watch the hopeful speculation among Dinar owners — that Abdul’s alleged proposal to delete three zeros from the Dinar would catapult the value of the Dinar by that respective amount thus finally making the Dinar holders of 04/05 suddenly rich. Some of the more sober speculators are at least sensible enough to deduce that even if it were true it would just be a rollback where you exchange 1 new Dinar for 1000 old ones. Not happening. Iraq has too many other priorities not to mention the scarcity of money to finance the cost of making the exchange.
Bad news guys. It won’t happen. Even if it did you cannot spend Dinars outside Iraq. There is no foreign exchange of Dinars. If you are going to vacation in Iraq you may do well if you can buy them cheap (3000.00 Dinars to 1.00 USD would give you approximately 2:1 when you got to Iraq. That’s assuming you can tell a counterfeit one from a real one. I’ve been advised there are lots of counterfeit ones being sold off for US dollars to speculators. Who in the US can authenticate Dinars for you? What if you did decide to go to Iraq and exchange your money and you got stopped in customs and searched? What if you got caught with counterfeit Dinars coming into Iraq? How much faith do you have in the enforcement and judicial system there? Think these things through.
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