US Today reported that even though a counterfeit detector pen was used on a fake $100 (€91) bill that a shopper paid with, the ink stayed clear, and it wasn’t until the money was taken to the bank that it was found to be counterfeit. Advanced technology, higher resolutions and colour duplication, along with the lower cost of printing, are making it much harder to define fake currency.
In the financial year of 2015, of the $78 million (€71 million) in counterfeit currency seized, 70 percent was “made using digital printing technology”, reported the Secret Service. Last year “six men were sentenced” for making counterfeit $100 (€91) notes, but they evaded being caught for 15 years because of the sophistication of the fake money. Another case involved a Missouri man printing $9,000 (€8,259) worth of $100 (€91) notes while living in a truck.
Hairdresser Todd Mulbarger, who owns several salons in California, said that he loses $300 to $400 (€275 to €367) a year “due to counterfeits”. There is no reimbursement for being paid with fake money, which can be very hard on those not in a high income bracket. Technology may have helped the criminals but it has also helped law enforcement to “crack down” on the crime by “improved security features” said Elena Quercioli, an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Texas
She added that you have to “think of it as a game. The better they get at counterfeiting, the better we get at catching the counterfeits”. Mulbarger says that the number of counterfeit notes he sees in his salons has dropped “significantly over 20 years” due to the fact more people are using credit cards and that the amount of fake notes “is slipping every year”. A video showing how to identify counterfeit notes is able to be viewed below.
The allure of Counterfeiting is obvious. If you could do it without getting caught, you would be able to print your own money and buy whatever you want with it. Counterfeiting is the ultimate technology for people who want to get something for nothing.
In the not-too-distant past, Counterfeiting was a difficult and expensive endeavor. It required large printing presses and the ability to cut intricate designs by hand into metal plates. Today, it’s much easier to create counterfeit bills. As thousands of teenagers discover every year, if you’re willing to break the law, you can create fake money with a PC, a scanner and a color inkjet printer in about 10 minutes.
In this article, we will look at the technology of Counterfeiting. You will learn about the techniques that you might use if you wanted to create your own counterfeit bills. We’ll also discuss the punishment that you will receive when you get caught trying out these techniques. In the process, you will learn how to detect “funny money” yourself and also discover whether the U.S. money supply is vulnerable to collapse from a sea of counterfeit bills.
Let’s say that you would like to start a life of crime by creating your own counterfeit currency. The easiest way to print your own money is to use your PC. If you own a scanner and a printer, it is pretty easy to get started.
The first thing you would do is put a $20 bill on your scanner. Then you would set the scanner for its highest resolution — perhaps 1,200 or 2,400 DPI — and scan an image of the bill. Your scanner would drop a 5 to 10 megabyte file on your hard drive, which you’d print out to use as money.
However, your stint as a counterfeiter wouldn’t be very successful. The $20 bill that’s been in circulation in the United States since late 2003 is one of the high-tech counterfeit-proof bills from the U.S. Treasury. If you zoom in on different areas of the bill and look at them closely, you can see a number of features designed to deter “casual counterfeiting.”
Whether you are a normal person taking your change at a store, or you are a merchant accepting cash in your business, you need to be aware of the counterfeiting problem. As you have seen, it is easy for teenagers to print counterfeit bills, and there are more sophisticated counterfeiters who are actually bleaching out authentic bills and printing fake bills onto the bleached paper.
Here are several steps you can take to protect yourself:
- Be suspicious; take time to look at and feel the money you receive.
- Check for obvious things like duplicate serial numbers.
- Be especially suspicious of older bills (those bearing old pre-1996 designs) and bills of larger denominations.
Simply refuse to accept older bills. Nearly all the pre-1996 money that is actually legitimate has been taken out of circulation and destroyed already.
Look at bills in the light. The color-shift ink is very hard to fake. The security stripe and watermark are impossible to duplicate with an inkjet printer.
If you believe you are receiving a counterfeit bill, call the police.
A lot of work has gone into creating bills that are hard to counterfeit. If you use the new security features, it is very easy to detect counterfeit bills.
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— money printing machine (@susana69919950) December 4, 2020
