- Nov 16, 2007 11:04am
- ...wow, often times these days things happen that remind me that time is running out...this is an article that I got in my inbox...you too can get email alerts or just visit gata.org regularly...
~*~
Attack on Liberty Dollar also seized metal dies in Idaho
Submitted by cpowell on 09:55AM ET Friday, November 16, 2007. Section: Daily Dispatches
FBI Raids Seize Dies, Records in Coeur d'Alene
By Bill Morlin
Spokane (Washington) Spokesman-Review
Friday, November 16, 2007
spokesmanreview.com/breaking/story.asp [spokesmanreview.com/breaking/story.asp]
As part of a nationwide investigation, FBI agents raided three Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, business locations on Thursday, seizing records and dies used to make the so-called silver "Liberty Dollar" sold throughout the United States by anti-government patriot groups.
The Coeur d'Alene raids coincided with similar raids by FBI and U.S. Secret Service agents on Thursday at the Evansville, Ind., headquarters of organization called NORFED -- the National Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve Act & Internal Revenue Code.
For a decade the organization, led by a self-described "monetary architect" and harsh critic of the Federal Reserve System, has pumped out an estimated $20 million its own currency, reportedly backed by silver coins minted and stored in Coeur d'Alene. The raids Thursday are the first head-on federal challenge to that operation.
Since 1998 the NORFED silver coins were manufactured at Sunshine Minting, a private Coeur d'Alene business which makes a variety of precious metal products. The silver coins backed up paper currently in $1, $5, and $10 denominations marketed by NORFED.
The organization was about to begin selling and distributing "Ron Paul" dollars, supporting the candidacy of the Republican congressman from Texas who's seeking the GOP nomination for president. He previously ran for president as a Libertarian.
Dies used to produce the coins reportedly were seized at the Coeur d'Alene minting company and accounting records were seized with warrants served at two Coeur d'Alene accounting firms, according to law enforcement sources.
"They took a lot of stuff out of there," one source said of the serving of a federal search warrant at Sunshine Minting, located at 750 W. Canfield, not far from the Kootenai County Sheriff's Office.
Officials with the sheriff's office were unaware of the raids. Federal authorities in Idaho referred inquiries to the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Western District of North Carolina, where the federal investigation apparently is being spearheaded. Those officials couldn't be reached Thursday afternoon.
The raids were confirmed by three other sources who asked not to be identified.
Tom Power, the current owner of Sunshine Minting, did not return telephone calls Thursday, but other employees said he was at the company located at 750 W. Canfield, north of Coeur d'Alene, shortly after federal search warrants were used to confiscated various items.
The Coeur d'Alene company was producing the Liberty Dollars under a contract with Bernard von NotHaus, a self-described "monetary architect" and critic of the Federal Reserve System who started NORFED while he lived in Hawaii in the late 1990s. His organization had tax-exempt, nonprofit status.
"We never refer to the American Liberty as a coin," von NotHaus told The Spokesman-Review in 1999. "The word 'coin' is a government-controlled term. This is currency that is free from government control."
"When the people own the money, they control the government," he said. "When the government owns the money, it controls the people."
Since then his anti-government coin-producing operation reportedly has put $20 million of its "Liberty Dollars" in circulation. They can be used at merchants willing to accept them as legal tender or so-called "redemption centers" located in most states.
A man claiming to be von NotHaus posted notice of the federal raids Thursday on the Internet.
[the article continues]
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