Haitians produce counterfeit food vouchers

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/world/americas/09haiti.html?ref=americas

This article describes the emergence of counterfeit food vouchers in Haiti. The vouchers were intended for the poorest Haitians to gain access to free rice distributions by aid organizations such as the UN and World Health Organization, and were also intended to quell the unrest surrounding the distribution as hungry Haitians competed with each other for the limited supplies. The counterfeit activity was discovered Sunday during a distribution in which the fraudulent tickets were yellow while the legitimate ones were meant to be green. The distributing organization has changed the ticket color daily and printed them on the emblems of the distributors which has kept the scam from becoming successful. However, except for the color the fakes are said to be good. According to a spokesman from the World Health Organization those producing the tickets are the same who produced fraudulent passports, currency and other official documents prior to the disaster. However, despite the scam, distributions across the country went on as planned.

This article relates to the history of Latin America as it illustrates describes the continued presence of corruption as a mechanism of dealing with shortages and ineffective government.