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

While the counterfeit twenty-peso notes closely resemble the authentic ones issued in 1961 by the NationalBank 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 counterfeitsare known to exist.

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

Prior to Fidel Castro's revolution of January, 1959, Cuban currency had been traditionally produced byAmerican companies. Large amounts of these moneys were brought to the United States by the Cubans that leftthe 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 circulatingfive-hundred and one-thousand-peso banknotes.

The relations between Cuba and the United States deteriorated rapidly after 1959. The latter sponsoredsabotage and violent acts in the island to provoke the fall of the new regime, to which Cuba responded from 1960with the nationalization of the American-owned companies established in the island. The subsequent economicembargo imposed by the Americans, still in force nowadays, caused the island to look for new partners in theformer 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 inthe southwestern coast of Cuba on April 17, 1961. However, the operation failed and already by April 20 therevolutionary forces were in control of the situation. Most of the invaders were captured (1202 men) whereas 118men were officially reported dead in action.

Commander Ernesto Guevara had been appointed as President of the Cuban National Bank on November26, 1959 and a currency reform was carried out between August 5 and 6 of 1961 under his supervision. The Lawnumber 963 signed on August 4 demonetized all previously circulating banknotes in the country and ordered theirreplacement by the new ones that had just been secretively produced by the State Printing Office of Prague in theformer Communistic Republic of Czechoslovakia. The action automatically rendered worthless all the Cubanmoney that had been extracted from the country and therefore inflicted a heavy blow on the political opponentsto the revolutionary process.

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

It is a well-known fact that the banknotes had been produced in Prague under great secrecy. Confidentialitywas of outmost importance in order to avoid that the large stock of old banknotes held in the United States wassent back to Cuba for exchange. It is also documented that the new notes were only sent to Havana from Pragueshortly before the date fixed for the exchange and were kept heavily guarded at all times (Vives, 2007). Thus, theCuban people only knew about the new banknotes in August, 1961 at the earliest. As a result, the idea acceptedup to now that the notes had been carried by the members of the Assault Brigade during the invasion of Bay ofPig 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 thesepeculiar counterfeits. It was inserted in the main Cuban newspaper of the time and informed the population of thedetection of forged twenty-peso notes in circulation having the specifications identified below. The notescorresponded to those issued back in 1961, belonged to any of the F-69 or F-70 series and carried serial numbershigher than 221.000 in both cases. A period of fifteen days was given for the holders to exchange them at the bankoffices for authentic ones, after which their possession would be punishable. The report was further accompaniedby 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 usedduring 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)