Taxes are only within machine gun range!

Chapter 242 I Must Survive!
Arsu also sensed that the middle-level people were dishonest, and the executive level was full of former gangsters and criminals, which would bring about a great deal of corruption.

Counterfeit money severely damages the market environment. It hasn't even circulated within enemy territory yet, but it's already starting to appear within our own!

Americans are lucky if they don't get involved, so naturally they don't interfere much.

Therefore, Arsu decided that he had to give the "Red Tea Gang" a good talking-to and decided to make a surprise visit.

Arsu's secretary quickly said, "Your Excellency, I'll prepare a helicopter for you right away. I suggest you bring more people. Those criminals and gangsters aren't exactly polite people, and I'm worried that if we don't bring enough people, they might not be so polite."

Most of the people working in the counterfeit money factory were former gangsters, including drug dealers... They weren't exactly mentally sound, and if pushed too far, they might actually pull out a gun.

“Take them with you,” Arsu waved his hand. “Have the presidential guard come with me.”

"Yes, please wait a moment... it should be ready in about an hour."

"Excellent, very efficient."

Arsu praised him, then slowly changed his clothes, ate breakfast, and even had the mood to watch the news.

The commotion has subsided considerably in the last couple of days. Milton doesn't seem to be causing any more trouble, either in Mexico or on the front lines back home.

Not long ago, two other warlords who had close ties with him purchased some armored vehicles and equipment in Brazil through their own channels and successfully delivered them to the occupied territory of Arsu, further consolidating the front line.

Looking at the fighting in Mexico, Arsu felt that the domestic civil war could at least be relatively peaceful until various types of aircraft arrived one after another.

Arsu looked at the intelligence report specially provided to him on the table and laughed, "Yes, fight more in Mexico, and it would be best to get Milton completely bogged down!"

"Once they've both been crippled, I'll be the biggest winner."

"None of Milton's tanks stationed at the front have been moved; in fact, I recently heard that they've even received six more, which means the fighting isn't intense enough..."

After reading the intelligence on the table and enjoying a delicious breakfast, the secretary hurriedly came in.

"Your Excellency, everything is ready. You may board the plane at any time!"

Arsu nodded, stood up, and followed his secretary to the helipad next to the presidential palace, where he saw a luxurious private helicopter and two imposing military helicopters.

"Great job, everyone."

After exchanging a few casual pleasantries, Arsu got into his private car, sat down on the spacious and comfortable sofa, and closed the helicopter door.

Military helicopters are never associated with "comfort." Often, soldiers have to be fully armed, secured with safety ropes, and have half their bodies exposed when the helicopter door is open.

You can imagine how painful it must have been.

But Arsu's helicopter is essentially a luxurious, enhanced first-class cabin.

beep...

Soon, Arsu took to the skies in a helicopter.

The secretary immediately smiled obsequiously, “Your Excellency, those gangsters and drug dealers usually just carry a few broken guns and swagger around in the slums… They’d probably be scared to death if they saw you suddenly showing up like this.”

"Too much counterfeit money has flowed out this time. There must be very serious corruption in the factory. We must catch a few typical cases and take them down. They need to know that no matter what they did before, I can let them live if I want them to live, and I can make them die instantly!"

Before long, the helicopter fleet had approached the valley above the counterfeit money printing plant, which Arsu considered a strategic weapon.

However, the military helicopter ahead suddenly transmitted a message to Arsu's helicopter.

"Your Excellency, something seems amiss up ahead... ahead?"

Arsu, who had just been smug, suddenly changed his expression: "What's not right?!"

He's in the air now, in a helicopter. If there are enemies hiding below, a single burst of bullets could cause serious trouble!

Hearing Arsu's sudden tense voice, the person in front quickly explained, "It's not a security threat, don't worry."

"Oh..." Arsu breathed a sigh of relief, then looked very puzzled, "What happened? Is there a problem with my printing plant?"

The helicopter tasked with scouting ahead remained silent for a long while: "..."

Arsu became even more puzzled and urged, "Stop beating around the bush, just tell me!"

After a moment of deliberation, the person on the other end spoke in a gentler tone: "Your Excellency, you, uh, you probably don't have any printing presses left."

"What?!" Arsu didn't understand at first. "What do you mean I don't have a printing press anymore? This printing press is so big, how could it grow wings and fly away?!"

However, there's no need for Arsu to be puzzled anymore.

Because his helicopter had also come up above the valley, he could see the view below with just a slight tilt of his head.

Just one glance was enough to chill Arsu to the bone.

"Where is my printing press???"

There was no longer any printing press down there, only half-collapsed factory buildings and scattered bodies lying on the ground—many of which looked somewhat incomplete!
There's no longer any printing plant here, only ruins and corpses left!

"Quickly, land quickly..." Arsu was so anxious he felt like he was going to vomit blood. "No, no, the ones in front should land first. Let's see if there are any survivors down there, see if my machine is still there, see if anyone is lying in ambush!"

Just yesterday afternoon, the printing plant reported the latest situation to the commissioner sent by the president...

How could this place turn into ruins overnight?
The helicopter in front did not respond, but silently obeyed the orders and began to descend.

The presidential guard soldiers conducted a cursory inspection of the factory, and after thinking for a long time, finally found some good news and reported, "Your Excellency, there is no threat nearby. You may disembark..."

Arsu forcibly suppressed the urge to vomit blood: "What about the others?"

"Uh, apart from some bodies and parts, we didn't find anything else... It seems the printing press was dismantled and taken away?"

This rudimentary banknote printing plant, with a complete set of printing equipment weighing about 10 tons, can be dismantled in about 20 minutes with the help of professional technicians and the existing equipment and forklifts in the plant.

Of course, all of these devices have now been destroyed.

Arsu and the others came to a stop in the helicopter. He staggered out of the cabin and looked at the mess on the ground. His fingers trembled uncontrollably.

"Who...who did this? Why hasn't anyone reported anything to us yet? Why haven't we heard a single sound?"

The soldiers looked at each other and shook their heads.

They're not detectives or police officers, how would they know who did it?

"Milton!" the secretary exclaimed instinctively, also somewhat alarmed. "It must have been Milton who did it!"

Arsu slammed his water bottle to the ground, furiously demanding, "Milton? Look at a map! Even a child knows how far Milton is from here! How did he get here? If he flew here, how could he have evaded our radar detection?"

"If he was flying at low altitude, how could he possibly evade our visual observation?!"

"say!"

"..."

After a long while, a soldier cautiously said, "Your Excellency, I've wanted to say this for a long time. If enemy planes detour by sea, bypassing our defenses before entering the country, how will we detect them? I think it's very likely that the enemy planes are using the sea as a route."

Arsu continued his tirade: "Even if he flew over like that, how did he manage to dismantle the equipment? By helicopter? How could his helicopter have enough fuel with such a roundabout route? Besides, Milton must have brought combat personnel and a lot of equipment, so his carrying capacity is very limited... How could they have carried it in batches over such a long distance?"

"The Milton's most capable aircraft is basically the UH-1, and even with external fuel tanks, it can only stay airborne for a maximum of 3 hours, which is simply not enough! At most, it can take the Milton to its destination, hover for a short while, and then it has to return!"

"Besides, is he a ghost? It's not that the printing plant was attacked, it's that we only found out now—if I hadn't come by helicopter, we might have had to wait another day or two to find out!"

"What if Milton had attacked the presidential palace? Would all Guatemalans have to wait two or three days, until my body had rotted and the smell wafted out the window before anyone knew?!"

"..."

Arsu completely disregarded the president's image and began to hurl insults at everyone present.

A group of country bumpkins from a small town took advantage of the night to rob Arsu's most prized printing plant... No, judging from the level of secrecy, this might not even be called "robbery," but rather "taking."

This is absolutely humiliating and disgraceful to the nation!
The secretary thought for a moment and said, "Perhaps they didn't take the whole machine, but only the most crucial parts, such as the printing plates and cylinders, to take back for repairs?"

Probably……

"What's the point of saying all this now?" Arsu kicked a water bottle off the ground. "Milton's probably already finished his victory celebration!"

Suddenly, a soldier said, "Wait, Your Excellency, if I'm not mistaken, this should be a garage? Are there usually cars in the garage?"

Upon hearing this, Arsu walked out of the factory and, after several attempts to contact them via radio, finally gave his answer: "There's always a car... Hmm, where did the car go?!"

The soldier nodded vigorously: "We searched the surrounding area but couldn't find a single truck. Perhaps... perhaps the enemy took it?"

Arsu: "..."

Not only Arsu, but everyone else's expressions gradually turned grim.

The truck is gone...

If, as previously speculated, Milton only disassembled the core components and hoisted them away, these trucks would either remain intact or be completely destroyed.

Milton couldn't possibly be so bored as to drive the truck a distance before destroying it; that would be pointless.

Therefore, with all the trucks at the scene missing, only one possibility remains.

Arsu was completely devastated: "Damn it! Milton didn't just dismantle the printing press and hoist away the core components... he loaded the entire printing press onto a truck and took it away!!!" The former could still offer some psychological comfort, that Milton was unethical, despicable, and shameless, catching them off guard by sea.

If it's the latter, then there's really no reason to make amends at all.

Milton's men swaggered into the printing plant, loaded all the equipment onto trucks, and then drove off openly, "taking" the printing plant away. The trucks drove all the way to the sea without encountering any resistance, without a single battle, and no one even knew that the convoy contained the counterfeit money printing plant...

If someone makes a documentary or a similar funny video in the future, this story will definitely make everyone who sees it laugh out loud, and he, Arsu, will be the biggest laughing stock.

Arsu took a deep breath: "...Let's go!"

The secretary quickly asked, "Where to?"

"Back to the Presidential Palace!" Arsu said. "Investigate immediately. Where are those trucks? Investigate them all, or I'll abandon the front lines. Bring the tanks back and blow these incompetent bastards to smithereens!"

"..."

……

Quetzaltenango.

Milton was at that moment conducting a post-battle debriefing with several core members.

"..."

"In conclusion, this operation was quite risky. To be caught by a speedboat in the middle of the night, after only a few hours, shows that Arsu's side isn't entirely useless; at least they're better than Lopez," Milton concluded. "If there are similar missions against Arsu in the future, I think we should be even more conservative."

"Only the core components of the banknote printing machine are hoisted; the non-core components can be purchased later for assembly and repair."

Brandon chuckled: "Boss, this time the harvest is really big... a whole printing press. From now on, we can print money ourselves and won't need to import it anymore!"

“It’s just a small set, and the supply is still very limited… The CIA is quite stingy, only giving Arsu this much. They probably just want him to make counterfeit money, not to have the ability to print money independently.” Milton chuckled. “But it doesn’t matter. As long as I can get one, I can get a second, a third.”

With its ability to replicate panels, this small set of equipment, discarded by the Americans, was enough for Milton to establish a completely self-sufficient money printing production line.

Flora added, "Most importantly, we also got a complete set of banknote printing materials from the warehouse. We can build a factory quickly, update our anti-counterfeiting technology, and start printing immediately."

Since there are already counterfeit banknotes made from old banknotes on the market, it is inevitable that the version will be changed.

It hasn't been released for long, and they're already asking for a new version...

Flora asked curiously, "How exactly do I exchange it? Is it a recycling service?"

Milton shook his head and said, "No need. Pan Madre Bank has a high credit rating, and everyone is willing to deposit money there. We can just issue new banknotes to the bank and have them destroy the old ones in the vault."

"The new version doesn't need to be too different from the old version. Just update the anti-counterfeiting technology, and then... then change the color of the number 100 on the banknote from the original to gold. This way, the change will be eye-catching, but the actual change will not be significant."

Flora took out a hundred-yuan "border region currency" bill, imagined what the numbers on it would look like if they turned gold, and nodded in satisfaction: "Not bad, I think it's good, I think it's beautiful!"

Of course, because all the ideas are copied...

Milton smiled:

"This is the biggest workload in the future... Currently, our monetary system is fine, so there is no need for excessive issuance."

"The biggest demand is actually for producing counterfeit Ghechar currency."

"Now it's Arsu's turn to have a headache over this flood of counterfeit money. Let him experience the economic winter. Notify me immediately after the factory is built."

"Received, received~"

"..."

In just a few days, a rudimentary banknote printing plant was completed.

There was no way around it; after all, Arsu was too considerate. That set of equipment could be used immediately simply by finding a flat piece of land, hiring a few people, and connecting it to electricity.

For future strategic considerations, all important production lines will be built in the mountains, hidden by the natural terrain.

As soon as construction was completed, Milton couldn't wait to come to this printing press that was entirely his own. Looking at the workers working around the slightly outdated equipment, Milton felt an indescribable sense of satisfaction.

Don't underestimate these devices just because they're not advanced or outdated... they're designed for powerful nations with a solid foundation.

Starting from scratch and seeing the printing plant begin to get on track, only those who personally built all of this step by step know how incredibly difficult it was.

Milton walked into the factory, waved to the workers to leave him alone and continue working, and then headed towards the workshop where counterfeit money was printed.

At that moment, two police officers were intently watching a man dressed in prison clothes.

One of the officers had his right hand on his holster, as if he would draw his gun and empty the magazine at the slightest sign of trouble.

The person being guarded was, of course, the "technician" from the Tea Gang that Milton had captured from the counterfeit money factory, named Blue Yalvis.

While the factory was under construction, Milton also had someone investigate Blue, confirming that he had indeed been arrested and imprisoned 10 years ago for making counterfeit money, which caused a minor incident at the time.

The moment a policeman saw Milton, he immediately saluted and said, "'The Godfather'."

Blue shuddered in fright.

Milton nodded, walked over to Blue, and asked, "How's the work going?"

Blue quickly stopped what he was doing, put down his pen, and pointed to the table next to him: "I, I made two banknotes, one $100 and one $100 qchal... However, the dollar one is the version before 1990. I haven't studied the versions after 1990 yet."

"I guarantee that you really can't tell the difference even from many banks."

“Gechal is much cruder and easier to forge... I also had a way to forge in bulk, but I was arrested before I could figure it out.”

The US dollar underwent an anti-counterfeiting redesign in 1990, adding text security threads and microtext to US dollar banknotes, which increased the difficulty of counterfeiting. If someone wants to counterfeit it again, Bru will need to study it for a period of time.

But in previous versions, it was a piece of cake.

Blue looked at Milton with a mixture of fear and anticipation, hoping that the two banknotes could buy him a life from this terrifying figure he had heard so much about during his imprisonment.

Milton picked up the real and counterfeit bills and ran them through the printing press. Most banknote detectors did not alarm and showed that they were genuine.

They checked the touch, watermark, and used ultraviolet light to examine everything, but couldn't find any problems.

"That's really clever. How did the police find out? Were they drinking? Were they smoking weeds?"

At this point, Bru's face lit up with anger: "The counterfeit money I made wasn't detected directly! It's just that there were a few of my competitors at the time whose quality control was so terrible that the counterfeit money scandal attracted an official investigation... They used top-of-the-line equipment that could detect intaglio printing textures, and that's how I got caught!"

"I would have been fine at all!"

This is nothing; the 1996 US dollars will have optically variable ink, making them even harder to counterfeit...

However, it's rather ridiculous that he himself was caught because of the lax quality control of his competitors.

Milton suppressed a laugh and nodded: "I understand... What you did is very good, it's almost indistinguishable from the real thing. Keep up the good work, and if you perform well, I might consider reducing your sentence."

"By the way, is counterfeiting only 100-denomination cheques possible?"

Bru was startled and shook his head violently: "Any denomination is fine! It's just that counterfeiting 100-dollar notes is more profitable... because whether it's 100 or 10 dollars, the difficulty and cost of counterfeiting are about the same, but when you use it, it's a 10-fold difference."

"If you don't believe me, I'll make it for you right away, I'll make it for you tonight... I promise I'm not lying!"

This guy is way too eager to live...

Milton rubbed his forehead: "Remember... I print counterfeit money as a strategic strike against the enemy, not to make money, and I will never make money through such means; it would only lead to the bankruptcy of my credibility."

Once a counterfeit Guechal is found, Milton will immediately instruct the Pan Madre Group to stop using Guechal for external payments to avoid raising suspicion that Milton is giving out counterfeit money.

Therefore, he would not counterfeit US dollars or other currencies, would not ruin his reputation, and would not make money through such shortcuts.

Taking shortcuts will come at a great cost.

"Whether it's a penny, a dollar, or a hundred dollars, we must produce it—remember, our goal is to destroy the enemy's economy, not to make money from it, and we are never allowed to make money from it."

"Once someone starts thinking about making money by printing counterfeit money, the speed at which they become corrupt and degenerate will exceed your imagination. If I discover that counterfeit money from our factory is circulating within our ranks, he will be my enemy."

"...Do you understand?"

Everyone's expression turned solemn: "Understood!"

Bru's hands trembled as he said, "Understood!"

"All counterfeit money must be registered... It's a weapon, not just ordinary counterfeit money. Once it's made, it will all be put into storage, awaiting my next allocation."

After saying that, Milton left the factory.

Flora, waiting in the helicopter, casually asked, "By the way, when do you plan to use this batch of counterfeit money?"

“For now, only a small amount will flow into Arsu’s territory; the majority will need to be stockpiled,” Milton said. “We also need time to introduce the new banknotes with enhanced anti-counterfeiting features into the market.”

"The negative impact of NAFTA has reached its peak. All I'm waiting for now is an opportunity... I don't have the ability to create a crisis yet, but I can certainly step on the gas to trigger an economic crisis."

"When the economic crisis fully erupts, we'll flood the market with these counterfeit banknotes that are almost identical to real ones, giving the Arsu government a boost."

(End of this chapter)