Counterfeit $1 Bills Seized

[Jim Koepke]

International Falls Minnesota (https://www.google.com/search?safe=off&sxsrf=ACYBGNSDXsX3zH5xDB2ztKZihwHWpaU2lg%3A1580228 498961&source=hp&ei=kl8wXoa9ONDL0PEPne6W-Ak&q=counterfeit+money+seized&oq=counterfeit+money+seized&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0.865747.880672..881329...6.0..0.189.1334.17 j1......0....1..gws-wiz.......0i131j35i39j0i3j0i22i30.7kEDz97t10o&ved=0ahUKEwiGzt7y2abnAhXQJTQIHR23BZ8Q4dUDCAg&uact=5)

$900,000 in $1 bills was stopped at the boarder.

My question is did they find it all.

My next question is the few stories read from the links above do not give any indication of what people should look at on the fake bills to find them if any have reached circulation.

jtk

[Bill Jobe]

A failure like that may result in a lot of inoccent residents being arrested, as well as the system having nothing in place to help them get their money back.

[Pat Barry]

Counterfeit $1 bills? Crooks must plan to spend in volume at McDonalds drive thru

[mike stenson]

Counterfeit $1 bills? Crooks must plan to spend in volume at McDonalds drive thru

It'd be lower risk than using twenties.

[Adam Herman]

how exactly do you make money doing this. you spend real money to make them and ship them here, and then you have to spend them to get them into the system, you don't just go to the bank with 900000 1 dollar bills all crispy and trade them for 20's, you buy a cheese burger, you eat at a discount, but how does the "boss" of the operation actually increase his wealth? sell the counterfeits for 50% of face value?

or is china just trying to manipulate our currency, though they will have to step up the game to beat the fed at printing money!

[Bruce Wrenn]

Recently there was an article about "Movie Money" making it into circulation. A friend once owned a shipping store. Customer wrote them a bad check. He required customer to pick up check. Customer comes in, and is told to go to the bank, which happens to be across the parking lot, and get cash, which she does. Comes back in store with money in an envelope from bank, and picks up check. Payment included a couple of hundred dollar bills. He deposits money next day, in the same bank. Following day, bank notifies him the two hundred are counterfeit. Remember customer picked them up at the same bank the day before, but he was on the hook for losses.

[Erik Loza]

Back in the days when I was a manager for Petco, one our stores took a bogus $100 bill. The Secret Service apparently showed up and took it. I really wanted to see the phony bill but never got a chance.

Erik

[glenn bradley]

This is disturbing. If there's money to be made in counterfeit ones, there's a lot more than $900k worth out there.

[mike stenson]

This is disturbing. If there's money to be made in counterfeit ones, there's a lot more than $900k worth out there.

Even at.. say... 30 cents on the dollar, there's a lot of money to be made out there. No one checks ones.

[Kev Williams]

There was a movie several years ago, forget the name, one of you will probably remember :) - the counterfeiters had a clever way to make money from low $ bills:

All paper money 'in the system' eventually ends up incinerated. After making up their bogus bills, they broke into the place where pallets of cash about to be incinerated was stored- they swapped in their bad cash for good cash. They made a ton of money watching their bogus money burn up, and nobody was the wiser...

[Jim Koepke]

A failure like that may result in a lot of inoccent residents being arrested, as well as the system having nothing in place to help them get their money back.

People who have accepted counterfeit, hopefully unknowingly, do not have any legal recourse for compensation. This helps to keep cashiers and individuals on the watch. A couple of times it has been my choice to refuse a bill that looked 'funny' to me.


Counterfeit $1 bills? Crooks must plan to spend in volume at McDonalds drive thru


how exactly do you make money doing this. you spend real money to make them and ship them here, and then you have to spend them to get them into the system, you don't just go to the bank with 900000 1 dollar bills all crispy and trade them for 20's, you buy a cheese burger, you eat at a discount, but how does the "boss" of the operation actually increase his wealth? sell the counterfeits for 50% of face value?

Counterfeit is often sold for 10¢ on the dollar value.

or is china just trying to manipulate our currency, though they will have to step up the game to beat the fed at printing money!

The Chinese presses likely run just as fast as the fed's. If there were 45 boxes in one container, how many other containers have boxes in them?


Recently there was an article about "Movie Money" making it into circulation. A friend once owned a shipping store. Customer wrote them a bad check. He required customer to pick up check. Customer comes in, and is told to go to the bank, which happens to be across the parking lot, and get cash, which she does. Comes back in store with money in an envelope from bank, and picks up check. Payment included a couple of hundred dollar bills. He deposits money next day, in the same bank. Following day, bank notifies him the two hundred are counterfeit. Remember customer picked them up at the same bank the day before, but he was on the hook for losses.

How does your friend know the person giving him the counterfeit didn't have it with him before he went into the bank? Though it isn't an unknown history of bank employees being in on a counterfeit passing scheme.


This is disturbing. If there's money to be made in counterfeit ones, there's a lot more than $900k worth out there.

You can bet sweet parts of your anatomy on that one.


Even at.. say... 30 cents on the dollar, there's a lot of money to be made out there. No one checks ones.

The older folks here may remember an old move, Mr. 880. It is based on the story of a man considered to possibly be the most successful counterfeiter of U.S.Curency. He only counterfeited $! bills.

From Wikipedia:


Emerich Juettner (January 1876 – January 4, 1955), also known as Edward Mueller or Mister 880, was an Austrian-American immigrant known for counterfeiting United States $1 bills and eluding the United States Secret Service for a decade, from 1938 to 1948.[1] When caught, he openly admitted his actions, adding that he had never given more than one bill to anyone, so no person had lost more than one dollar.[1] He was sentenced to one year and one day in prison, and a one-dollar fine, and later sold the rights to his story which was made into the 1950 film Mister 880.

Keep an eye on the $1 bills you receive in change. Maybe keep an eagle eye on any cash you receive.

I remember many years ago a retailer related to me how he received a $1 bill with the corners from $10 bills pasted to the corners. He discovered it later and called the police. By the time the police got there one of his cashiers had given it out in change thinking it was a ten.

jtk

[mike stenson]

It'd be a good time to go to $1 coins, but this will never happen in the US.

[Jim Koepke]

There was a movie several years ago, forget the name, one of you will probably remember :) - the counterfeiters had a clever way to make money from low $ bills:

All paper money 'in the system' eventually ends up incinerated. After making up their bogus bills, they broke into the place where pallets of cash about to be incinerated was stored- they swapped in their bad cash for good cash. They made a ton of money watching their bogus money burn up, and nobody was the wiser...

There was a twist on that in an episode of Elementary. The thieves went a bit further and broke into the facility where the cash was to be destroyed.

We will likely see another in the future as often entertainment story lines that excite audiences tend to be recycled.

jtk

[Jim Koepke]

It'd be a good time to go to $1 coins, but this will never happen in the US.

The $1 coin would actually save the treasury money by not having to deal with the hassle of printing and then recycling bills.

There are $1 coins. Most people would rather not deal with them. From 1970 - 1981 there was the Susan B Anthony dollar. It suffered in circulation due to its size. Most people thought it was a quarter.

Almost 100 years earlier another coin suffered the same fate, the 20¢ piece was a little bit smaller than a quarter. One of these came my way in change back in the 1950s.

jtk

[John K Jordan]

Even at.. say... 30 cents on the dollar, there's a lot of money to be made out there. No one checks ones.

Someone is checking, at least enough to write and make videos about it. Google how to detect counterfeit 1$ bills

[mike stenson]

The $1 coin would actually save the treasury money by not having to deal with the hassle of printing and then recycling bills.

There are $1 coins. Most people would rather not deal with them. From 1970 - 1981 there was the Susan B Anthony dollar. It suffered in circulation due to its size. Most people thought it was a quarter.

Almost 100 years earlier another coin suffered the same fate, the 20¢ piece was a little bit smaller than a quarter. One of these came my way in change back in the 1950s.

jtk

Totally agreed, US bills and coinage are both hard to distinguish. Especially for those who have vision issues, but that also doesn't help move change along. Which is why I say abandonment of the one dollar bill will ever happen here.

[Roger Feeley]

There was a scandal back in the '70s in Emporia KS. A kid at the local vo-tech school was messing around in printing class. He shoots a negative of a $10 bill and prints some and the teacher doesn't notice.
-- He shot it 10% too big
-- He printed only one side
-- He printed it using blue ink on yellow paper that sorta worked out to green

So this kid is handing these out to his friends like kids do. One of this friends decides to pass one and goes to fill up with gas. This was back in the day when you filled your tank and then handed some roving worker the cash and they made change from their pocket. he buys $10 in gas and hands over the bill. The worker doesn't realize it until he puts the bill on his wad and it doesn't fit (too big). Not very astute but the worker does get the license plate and calls the Emporia Police.

The Emporia Police show up and don't know what to do so they call the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.
The KBI shows up and doesn't know what to do so they call the FBI.
The FBI shows up and doesn't know what to do but they finally call the Secret Service.

The kid spent a night in jail and got yelled at.
The teacher was fired for not properly supervising his class.

I started evening classes the next year as an extension to my studies in Industrial Education (shop). They had a new teacher and he was great. We didn't print any money.

[John K Jordan]

Totally agreed, US bills and coinage are both hard to distinguish. Especially for those who have vision issues, but that also doesn't help move change along. Which is why I say abandonment of the one dollar bill will ever happen here.

I use the dollar coins a lot - I get them in rolls at the bank. I order packages of $2 bills too.

If you travel internationally they are GREAT to give out since most people have never seen them. Another thing I found friends were interested in, especially younger friends: used US $1 bills. It's far more valued as a keepsake if it's well worn since that means it has circulated around the US, who knows where.

[Greg Funk]

I used cash for the first time in 6 months last night buying something on craigslist. I tap my phone for 95% of my in person purchases so no risk of counterfeit bills here. I think the US is a few years behind the rest of the world in its reliance on cash.

[Bill Dufour]

Supposedly the nazi's in Germany had a government program to forge British money. It was so good it could not be detected. They found pallets of money in a lake in Germany after the war. The printing plates ?
Bil lD.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bernhard

[Matt Schrum]

The $1 coin would actually save the treasury money by not having to deal with the hassle of printing and then recycling bills.

That used to be the case a decade or three ago, but is no longer true. Paper money used to have a much shorter lifespan before credit and debit cards became so widespread. Paper money is now lasting about twice as long as it used to, so the argument that coins are cheaper in the long run (higher up front costs, but longer circulation before replacement) is no longer quite so clear cut.

https://www.npr.org/2019/04/08/711162059/government-watchdog-flips-on-dollar-coin

[Malcolm McLeod]

...If you travel internationally ....

^Careful.:o A couple or 10 yrs back I was in the interior of Mexico. Exchange rate at the time was exactly 100pesos/$1 IIRC, so Mexican retailers would take US currency, but NOT if there was ANY damage to it. What I thought was a minor edge tear or worn spot in ATM dispensed cash, was enough for them to refuse it.

Maybe tourist areas were/are different ...more confident of US$ appearance, or at least more confident the local banks would accept it..??

[Erik Loza]

...retailers would take US currency, but NOT if there was ANY damage to it. What I thought was a minor edge tear or worn spot in ATM dispensed cash, was enough for them to refuse it...

My wife and I experienced this in Kenya. The tour agency made a big deal about it beforehand. I remember going to our bank here and making sure all the $20's they gave us were nice and crisp.

Erik

[mike holden]

Add Peru and Argentina to that list. In both places, only crisp undamaged lightly folded bills were acceptable. Seemed odd to me as that is the likely condition of counterfeit bills, but then I don't change currency for a living.
Mike

[Frank Pratt]

I don't understand the reluctance to get rid of the $1 & $2 bills. When Canada did away with them decades ago there was very little protest and it saves significant amounts over paper currency. And what's with keeping the penny?

[Bill Dufour]

New Zealand prints their money on clear plastic. I believe 10 cents is the smallest coin now. I think the bank of England actually prints the stuff.
Bil lD

[mike stenson]

I don't understand the reluctance to get rid of the $1 & $2 bills. When Canada did away with them decades ago there was very little protest and it saves significant amounts over paper currency. And what's with keeping the penny?

Until pretty recently, I could say I spent most of my live in Europe. I don't get it either (nor do I understand the size, shape, and color having to be identical), although I think Scotland held onto the 1£ note longer than the rest of the UK as well.

The penny? Japan still has the 1¥ coin, which is aluminum and is so light it'll float on many liquids. FWIW, I still use cash in the US, although more in Germany and Japan (as also my friends who live there do). China, that's 100% cash, as I do not have a Chinese bank account so that I can use wechat to pay.

[Frank Pratt]

New Zealand prints their money on clear plastic. I believe 10 cent sis the smallest coin now. I think the bank of England actually prints the stuff.
Bil lD

Canadian bills are plastic as well. Lasts much longer & is easier to make counterfeit resistant.

[Jim Koepke]

That used to be the case a decade or three ago, but is no longer true. Paper money used to have a much shorter lifespan before credit and debit cards became so widespread. Paper money is now lasting about twice as long as it used to, so the argument that coins are cheaper in the long run (higher up front costs, but longer circulation before replacement) is no longer quite so clear cut.

https://www.npr.org/2019/04/08/711162059/government-watchdog-flips-on-dollar-coin

Thanks for that Matt. My reading on coinage and bill printing statistics has definitely been lacking in the past few years.

The coin machine vending industry clamored for a round coin when the SBA dollar coin was issued. The treasury wanted to make an eleven sided coin similar to coins in Canada and other countries. The vending industry won. Then they never set up their machines to accept the dollar coin. During my employment in public transportation our vendors could have been set up to accept dollar coins. The cash handling department didn't want to bother with handling dollar coins.

The article Matt linked reported there is a billion dollars in dollar coins that no one wants to use.

jtk

[Bill Dufour]

making dollar coins and 2 dolalr bills is a great scheme. Make say one billion dollars worth, cost 250 million to make. hand out in exchange for paper money. Everyone saves them in the sock drawer as a "collectible, 3/4 billion profit for the treasury department. Similar to collectible stamps that never get used.
Bil lD

[Jim Koepke]

making dollar coins and 2 dolalr bills is a great scheme. Make say one billion dollars worth, cost 250 million to make. hand out in exchange for paper money. Everyone saves them in the sock drawer as a "collectible, 3/4 billion profit for the treasury department. Similar to collectible stamps that never get used.
Bil lD

There is a word for that, seigniorage.


seigniorage | ˈsānyərij | (also seignorage)
noun
profit made by a government by issuing currency, especially the difference between the face value of coins and their production costs.

Speaking of stamps, a Stamp & Coin dealer in Santa Rosa wanted to get out of the stamp business. He ran an ad hoping people would stop bringing in old stamps to sell. In the ad he said he was now paying half face value for unused stamps. It brought people in by the bus load. Many of them were used for sending out his mail. It was kind of fun getting mail from his shop. My neighbor collected stamps. He specialized in postmarks. He really lit up and beamed when a piece of my mail was given to him with a block of 50 year Commemorative Civil War Veterans stamps.

jtk

[andrew whicker]

So the moral of the story is that we're all fine. No one checks, unlikely you'll be the last one in line.

Moving on...

There was a group of kids at my hs making fake money. When they got caught, FBI investigated and I'm pretty sure scared the living crap out of them. They were spending the money at stores and at school. Very lucky they didn't go to federal prison.

[John Goodin]

I have seen the corners of higher denominations pasted on a one several times while working in a grocery store. Luckily, I never took one, that I know about anyway. When people are handing you money all day, and it is not yours, the attention to detail wanes.

[Jim Koepke]

So the moral of the story is that we're all fine. No one checks, unlikely you'll be the last one in line.

No one wants to be the last one in line. Having a counterfeit bill or two could ruin a person's day if they were caught unknowingly trying to pass it along.

We also do not know if this is the only shipment. There are other ports of entry along our northern border.

There will be many who will check. Often when counterfeiting stories appear in the press it is because the Secret Service wants people to be watching. Their job isn't yet done. They do not have the counterfeiters. They may not have any good leads on the American distribution network.

The treasury doesn't like to publicize counterfeiting because it tends to give people ideas. "Gee, run off a few twenties on the color copier at work and if caught, they must have been some of that counterfeit that has been going around."

jtk

[Rod Sheridan]

The $1 coin would actually save the treasury money by not having to deal with the hassle of printing and then recycling bills.

There are $1 coins. Most people would rather not deal with them. From 1970 - 1981 there was the Susan B Anthony dollar. It suffered in circulation due to its size. Most people thought it was a quarter.

Almost 100 years earlier another coin suffered the same fate, the 20¢ piece was a little bit smaller than a quarter. One of these came my way in change back in the 1950s.

jtk

We no longer have 1 or 2 dollar bills, they've been replaced with coins.

We no longer have a penny either, it was simply discontinued................Regards, Rod.

[Pat Barry]

Counterfeit $1 bills is a kids game, but in another year or two there will be no one needing to use cash money for most transactions. Plus, still a very good chance that Bitcoin becomes widely accepted.

[Dan Hunkele]

The gentleman club dancers will need to check their "pockets".

[mike stenson]

Counterfeit $1 bills is a kids game, but in another year or two there will be no one needing to use cash money for most transactions. Plus, still a very good chance that Bitcoin becomes widely accepted.

I highly doubt we'll be cashless within a decade, let alone two years. I like cash, it's a great anonymizer in an environment where everything you do, and every purchase you make is tracked anyway. Plus, people have been talking about bitcoin for years now, and about the only thing that's been widely accepted is the blockchain construct.

[Pat Barry]

I highly doubt we'll be cashless within a decade, let alone two years. I like cash, it's a great anonymizer in an environment where everything you do, and every purchase you make is tracked anyway. Plus, people have been talking about bitcoin for years now, and about the only thing that's been widely accepted is the blockchain construct.

Wife and I went to Norway, Sweden, Denmark for two weeks last summer and the only rrason I needed cash was to feel like I was ready for an emergency. Everything was paid for on credit card. No worries. Thats the way its headed.

[mike stenson]

Wife and I went to Norway, Sweden, Denmark for two weeks last summer and the only rrason I needed cash was to feel like I was ready for an emergency. Everything was paid for on credit card. No worries. Thats the way its headed.

You can do the same in the US. But in both instances it's far from being cashless. That means that no one uses cash. We're a long way from that.

For what it's worth, I use cash less in the US than in the EU. You can use card there, but cash is still more predominant and thus generally easier. Did you notice the waiter coming over with a pocket book, then leaving again when you pulled out your card?

[Jim Koepke]

Counterfeit $1 bills is a kids game, but in another year or two there will be no one needing to use cash money for most transactions. Plus, still a very good chance that Bitcoin becomes widely accepted.

There is a very good chance Bitcoin will languish until it fades away.

Counterfeiting $1 bills may not be a real money maker. However it could help to destabilize an economy.

There are large numbers of homeless in every city in America. They would love to have cheap $1 bills they could feed into vending machines and bill changers all day.

Cash will be around for years to come. Not everyone has a cell phone or even a bank account.

Yard sales, flea markets, farmers markets, traveling road shows and a wide variety of other legal activities do not now nor in the near future will have the logistical ability to go cashless.

jtk

[Günter VögelBerg]

Why would you counterfeit a $1? Wouldn't it be just as easy to counterfeit $20 or any of the bills without the metal strip?

For being the most dominant currency in the world it amazes me how primitive US bills are compared the most other major currencies. Ever tried to counterfeit a Canadian bill? Those things are wild.

[Leo Graywacz]

Likely no counterfeit measures in a $1 bill.

I got a new printer and decided to copy a $1 bill. My last printer wouldn't print them, something in there detected it was cash and stopped it from being copied. I put the bill at an angle and it copied it. And it was a damn fine copy of it too. I was shocked. I cut it out and put it on the counter for my wife to see. She thought it was real, nothing on the backside of it.

Tore it up and threw it away. I thought the printers weren't suppose to be able to copy cash. Even my 1991 version of Paint Shop Pro won't put a bill out to the printer, it too knows its not allowed to do so.

[Pat Barry]

You can do the same in the US. But in both instances it's far from being cashless. That means that no one uses cash. We're a long way from that.

For what it's worth, I use cash less in the US than in the EU. You can use card there, but cash is still more predominant and thus generally easier. Did you notice the waiter coming over with a pocket book, then leaving again when you pulled out your card?

Mike, I dont understand your question about the waiter and pocketbook. All the waiters either took our card to run it at their station or plugged it into a device they carried with them.

[Malcolm McLeod]

OK! So I'm thinking the US Secret Service is even now signing up as SMC members - en mass.:eek:

[Mark Blatter]

There was a movie several years ago, forget the name, one of you will probably remember :) - the counterfeiters had a clever way to make money from low $ bills:

All paper money 'in the system' eventually ends up incinerated. After making up their bogus bills, they broke into the place where pallets of cash about to be incinerated was stored- they swapped in their bad cash for good cash. They made a ton of money watching their bogus money burn up, and nobody was the wiser...


The problem with this idea is that most, if not all, Fed Reserves process all currency they receive on counter/sorters that off sort bills that are mutilated then auto destroy them on the spot. They are shredded into very small confetti. Most Feds have tours and you can buy small containers of the confetti to take home. As far as I know, there is no master depot for burning old cash. The counter/sorters used by the Fed are large machines that cost in the millions.

Mutilated coin on the other hand is a whole other beast.

In the early 90's, I was at a convention and one of the speakers was from Bureau of Engraving and Printing. This was about a year before the first redesign of the hundred. He asked that the doors be closed and locked, then posted a couple of his fellow workers at the doors. He then passed around samples of the new hundreds so we could see them. He talked about the new anti-counterfeiting features the bills would have, but only about half of them. The rest were classified and he couldn't tell us. When he was done, no one could leave until he had every sample back in his hands.

Printing $1 makes no sense to me. As others have said, the cost to pass them would be high for little return. A $5 or a $10 would make so much more sense.

[Barry McFadden]

Mike, I dont understand your question about the waiter and pocketbook. All the waiters either took our card to run it at their station or plugged it into a device they carried with them.

You should never let someone take your card somewhere to run it.... insist it be done at the table or go with him to run it....

[Jim Koepke]

Why would you counterfeit a $1? Wouldn't it be just as easy to counterfeit $20 or any of the bills without the metal strip?


Printing $1 makes no sense to me. As others have said, the cost to pass them would be high for little return. A $5 or a $10 would make so much more sense.

The people printing the bogus bills are not the same people as those passing them. They are making their money by printing then selling the bills at a discount.

Found this at > https://www.bostonfed.org/news-and-events/news/2019/10/counterfeiting-experts-at-boston-fed-fight-flow-of-fake-money.aspx :


The major counterfeiters are usually part of organized crime, drug cartels, or rogue governments, and they sell their counterfeit bills wholesale, for 50 cents on the dollar or sometimes even less, Panariti said. Once these bills are purchased, they are tried in the retail world, and if they succeed, they become a part of the currency circulation.

Society tends to hold together because most people prefer to be honest. It is those who do not have a well aligned moral compass who are willing to make a few extra dollars every day through less than honest means.

Another question in this, was this an intent to profit by an unscrupulous printer or was it an attempt to disrupt commerce?

jtk

[Pat Barry]

You should never let someone take your card somewhere to run it.... insist it be done at the table or go with him to run it....
? Never a problem with this. It is common practice. Go with him to run it? No. Not necessary.

[Barry McFadden]

? Never a problem with this. It is common practice. Go with him to run it? No. Not necessary.

I've heard far too many stories of the card being scanned numerous times when it is out of your sight....

[Stan Calow]

You should never let someone take your card somewhere to run it.... insist it be done at the table or go with him to run it....

In Europe all credit cards are chip and PIN so they are required to use those handheld readers at the table in order for the customer to enter a PIN to complete the transaction at the table. Its the American tourists with the primitive chip & sign cards that are the exception. In some countries, like Germany, people still prefer to use cash for small transactions. They also dont have "mileage points" connections with credit cards, and some places add a surcharge for card transactions or have high minimums.

[Brian Elfert]

The $20 bill has been redesigned multiple times since the $1 bill was last redesigned in the 1960s. The Bureau of Engraving states there are no plans to redesign the $1 due to little counterfeiting.

My Epson scanner will not scan US currency. One day I had a large pile of checks and a hundred dollar bill to deposit at the bank. I was scanning all the checks before I deposited them and somehow ended up putting the hundred dollar bill in the scanner. The software would not let me scan US currency.

[andrew whicker]

I listened to a podcast about a guy that used to supply prop money to movie sets (his business is in movie props). I think he supplied the cash for Ocean's 11. If you haven't seen it, the last scene is this huge cash everywhere getting stolen, etc in a Las Vegas casino. So lots of cash. Well, they followed the rules regarding fake cash (you can sort of pick and choose it sounds like, but things have to be obviously wrong with the cash. It can't actually look real upon examination). Some people walked off set with fake cash and started spending it and getting away with it. The FBI showed up to his business and he said something like "I thought it was just funny at first, but it got serious very quickly". He said he no longer supplies prop cash, the risk isn't worth it. It sounded like he could have been in serious trouble if he hadn't been able to prove that he followed the gov't rules for prop money.

[Leo Graywacz]

The $20 bill has been redesigned multiple times since the $1 bill was last redesigned in the 1960s. The Bureau of Engraving states there are no plans to redesign the $1 due to little counterfeiting.

My Epson scanner will not scan US currency. One day I had a large pile of checks and a hundred dollar bill to deposit at the bank. I was scanning all the checks before I deposited them and somehow ended up putting the hundred dollar bill in the scanner. The software would not let me scan US currency.

Maybe it didn't care about the $1 bill. Or one of the features in a $100 bill is that it tells the scanner it can't copy it.

[Jim Koepke]

Maybe it didn't care about the $1 bill. Or one of the features in a $100 bill is that it tells the scanner it can't copy it.

An alphabet soup of federal and international agencies have been working with technology manufactures to help counter unwanted activities and to help with forensic investigations.

Here is a part of a page on laser printers:


Some of the documents that we previously received through FOIA suggested that all major manufacturers of color laser printers entered a secret agreement with governments to ensure that the output of those printers is forensically traceable. Although we still don't know if this is correct, or how subsequent generations of forensic tracking technologies might work, it is probably safest to assume that all modern color laser printers do include some form of tracking information that associates documents with the printer's serial number.

This came from a link (to the Electronic Frontier Foundation) in an article about the secret codes printers place on documents
> https://gadgets.ndtv.com/laptops/features/nsa-leaker-reality-winner-microdots-printer-spying-metadata-1714577 <

It is likely that the scanning software in copiers and printers that are multi-function also have a form of recognition software built in to them.

jtk

[Brian Elfert]

Maybe it didn't care about the $1 bill. Or one of the features in a $100 bill is that it tells the scanner it can't copy it.

I didn't try the scanner with other denominations, but I assume the software knows what each denomination of US currency looks like and won't scan any of it.

[Gary Ragatz]

I doubt that the scanner can identify the various denominations. But $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100 notes have all been redesigned within the last 20 years to incorporate features that make it easier to identify counterfeit currency - e.g., images that are only visible when you hold the bill up to the light and images that change/move when you tilt the bill. These are probably things that the scanner can identify. The $1 bill on the other hand, hasn't been redesigned since the early 60's, so these features aren't present.

[Jim Koepke]

My only knowledge on bill scanning is having worked in an environment using bill scanners in vending machines. My work on them mostly involved removing jammed bills. The actual repair and testing was done by others in my department.

The bill scanners could determine if a bill had the valid markings to indicate its authenticity and value. This, to the best of my understanding, was done with software. There may be similar detection software in scanners.

If this is the case and a person new the 'points of detection' would it be possible to use the 'points of detection' when printing a document to make the document unable to be copied?

jtk