The Art of Imitation: Counterfeiting
The art of forging has existed for as long as currency has existed. Some of the earliest evidence of monetary counterfeiting dates back to about 400 BC when Greek coins were counterfeited by having a layer of precious metals cover up less valuable coins. Another method of counterfeiting was creating a mold using genuine copper and then filling that mold with a less valuable metal. Because of this issue, many began to weigh coins and cut them to see their center, bringing about the rise of the first official coin testers.
This continued for most of history until the rise of paper currency. While the printing of banknotes had been around since 1120, paper currency became prevalent in the 1800s when the US government began issuing paper money. With the influx of banknotes, the value of coins decreased. At the same time, the value of paper currency increased, forcing counterfeiters to adjust their strategies and figure out different ways to forge the new mainstream currency. This was significantly more difficult than forging coins for a few reasons. First, unlike coins, which are made out of a single pure metal, banknotes are made from a unique mix of 25 percent linen and 75 percent cotton. It is very hard for counterfeiters to replicate this specific blend of materials, allowing anti-counterfeiters to spot fakes more easily. Also, the U.S. began to put tiny security threads within bills, which glow a particular color (to represent the dollar amount) when exposed to ultraviolet light. Additionally, on bills worth $10 or more, color-changing ink is used on the bottom right number of the bill. This can be seen by simply tilting the bill up and down, and the ink will change back and forth from light green to a more copper color. While all these anti-counterfeiting measures — and many more — are incredibly effective, it still isn’t impossible to counterfeit the US dollar…
According to the United States Department of Treasury, there is currently about $70-$200 million dollars of counterfeit money in circulation worldwide. An estimated 60% comes from Peru, the world’s most notorious US currency counterfeiter. They have perfected the art of copying to the point where their fake bills are almost identical to authentic ones. How they do this, however, takes a lot of time, energy, and investment. Paper is often the most challenging issue to tackle for counterfeiters, so many bleach $1 bills instead of taking the time to create their own paper. After bleaching, however, the new blank paper is thinner than it was previously, so they often glue on another bleached bill with a fake thread and a new watermark. The counterfeiters then use large, specialized printing machines to make fake $100 bills. This, however, is not easy as well, as bills require a mix of many different special inks that are hard to acquire.
There have been many large counterfeiting schemes, such as in 2016 when the Secret Service discovered $30 million of counterfeit US currency printed in a house in Peru. However, the most notorious was Frank Bourassa, who was caught and charged with producing $250 million worth of $20 bills in 2012. He produced virtually flawless bills by getting all his materials from places in Europe, such as Germany and Poland. He was released after only six weeks in jail and now runs his own anti-counterfeiting consultancy company.
The most apparent impact of counterfeiting is inflation. As counterfeiting increases, the more money there will be circulating in the economy, effectively lowering the value of the real US dollar. Inflation causes many problems, such as less purchasing power, rising interest rates, decreased stock growth, etc. While inflation can sometimes naturally go down, counterfeiting prevents this by producing millions of artificial bills. If uncontrolled, counterfeiting could generate detrimental impacts on the economy, which is why governments and agencies around the globe are trying to fight this issue.
For example, many working in anti-counterfeiting are now being trained to spot fakes immediately through their eyes and hands. Through intensive practice and training many people can now distinguish between a real and a counterfeit. This training includes the deep studying of the look and feel of authentic bills. Additionally, banknote processing systems, which scan millions of bills daily, can detect changes in ink, type of paper, and more. If a bill is detected as a fraud, it is handed off to the Secret Service to investigate. All these countermeasures — and many more — are used to eradicate this problem once and for all.
