Funny money: Counterfeiting is no laughing matter
Published 5:00 pm Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Officials say business owners especially might want to rethink that trusting approach, especially if their firms are located in coastal towns that draw tourists who are often, by definition, strangers.
Seaside Police Chief Robert Gross said passing fake money is more common than you might think, but catching the criminals is not.
The discovery in Seaside of counterfeit money in
| How to spot a
counterfeit bill: Get a special marker pen to mark bills you suspect don’t look right. The ink contains iodine, which will chemically react with cellulose, an ingredient in most paper. Real currency is made with paper made from cotton and linen. Compare a suspect note with a genuine note of the same denomination and series. Look at the serial number and the Treasury Seal on the bill. They should be the same color. Look for blurry images or type. Images and printing on real bills are crisp and clear. Inspect the paper the bill is printed on to see if it has tiny red and blue fibers embedded in it. What if a bill seems fake? Keep it. Do not return it to the person who gave it to you. Delay the passer of the bill if possible. Get a good description of the person and write down his or her license plate number if you can. Contact your local Secret Service Field Office in Portland at (503) 326-2162. Carefully place the note in a protective covering such as an envelope. Surrender the note only to a properly identified police officer or Secret Service Agent. Source: U.S. Secret Service and Seaside Police Department |
circulation there, and the subsequent arrest of one of the suspects, is a case in point, albeit an unusual one.
Gross said the recent Seaside arrest was a fortunate outcome that began with an observant employee and ended with some incredibly dumb crooks whose behavior seems worthy of “Darwin Award” recognition (Darwin Awards are mock awards honoring the idiotic exploits of seemingly stupid people. See darwinawards.com).
In this case, the counterfeiters had a group photo taken of themselves and then paid for it with counterfeit money that caught the attention of an employee. Within days, police had apprehended one of the suspects, while another is believed to have fled to Texas.
Most counterfeiters, however, aren’t that witless and their fakery isn’t discovered until they are long gone. Gross said it’s common for money crooks to pass bills in situations where retailers are preoccupied (like on a weekend in a busy tourist town) or at an event where crowded conditions and long lines make it less likely that distracted staff will take a close look at bills. Counterfeiters can hit a town once on a weekend and disappear within a few hours.
While counterfeiting does not qualify as a violent crime, it does leave stunned victims in its wake who sometimes have suffered significant financial harm. Gross said there is no government safety net to reimburse people who accept fake currency.
“They [victims] are really on the hook for the cost of that bill,” he said. “When we catch them there’s a chance there could be restitution.”
But catching a counterfeiter often depends on an astute cashier noticing that something is wrong.
“In the most recent cases,” Gross said, “we received word from an employee who was making change that ‘this doesn’t look right.’ They were able to spot the shiny paper. The edges were not clear, and the images were blurry in some places.”
Gross said that while in the past counterfeiting has been a fairly complex process involving printing presses and other cumbersome equipment, these days modern computers and electronic printers make it easier for criminals to create a passable looking fake bill.
Counterfeiters who are able to pay for a transaction with a fake bill also net the change in real money, so the possibility of quick profit is a draw for some.
But in case counterfeiting might sound like a viable career path during the recession, think again. The U.S. Secret Service polices counterfeiting at the federal level.
The law assesses heavy penalties for the crime, which is considered a felony. Convicted counterfeiters can face up to 15 years in prison, in addition to payment of restitution to victims.
While the Secret Service is largely known now for its work protecting presidents from harm, the agency was originally created in 1865 to control counterfeiting nationwide just after the Civil War. During that unstable time in U.S. history, a significant percentage of money being circulated nationwide was fake. The agency went on to assume responsibility for security details in the wake of President William McKinley’s assassination in 1901.
Counterfeit money is often discovered when merchants or consumers try to deposit it in the bank. Financial institutions have special equipment that scans money to detect fake bills.
Gross said he has never seen counterfeit coins in circulation, because they require forging and other time-consuming skills for a negligible return. Most coin counterfeiting, he said, involves crooks trying to make low value coins appear to be rare specimens that they can sell to collectors.
Counterfeit and forged checks are a different story, however.
“We used to see folks coming up from California with business checks,” Gross said. “They created them on color printers with bogus company names printed on them,” he said. “They would come to town and cash these checks on a weekend.”
The fallout from this and other cases is that most merchants won’t accept checks except from persons they know and trust.
These days, Gross said, the Secret Service is focusing more on electronic crime, which is fast becoming the Internet version of counterfeiting.
When local counterfeiting incidents happen, the crimes fall under the jurisdiction of local law enforcement.
Gross said counterfeiting incidents typically come in waves, and fake bills can surface in any denomination.
“I would suspect a lot of people don’t spend a great deal of time looking closely at their money,” he said. “For us it comes and goes. It just depends on if a couple of people think they can slide into a resort community, pass bills and get out of town before anyone notices.”
