Make Money Fast

rrwood writes "This is an intriguing insight into the activities of a master Canadian counterfeiter. The subject of the article, Wesley Weber, is/was a distinguished hacker and cracker who used a combination of technological skills and social engineering to produce what is probably the highest-quality counterfeit currency ever detected in Canada. Even more interesting to note is the widescale effect this one guy had, since he and his confederates single-handedly managed to force businesses to stop accepting $100CDN bills, thus affecting literally millions of people. The story is a fascinating look at his brief career, and the dumb, shortsighted mistakes ultimately responsible for his downfall."

Comments

New bills

[g-to-the-o-to-the-g]

This is sorta irrelavent now, because recently the Canadian mint has come out with several new bills which are extremely difficult to counterfeit. THe new $20 bill came out last week I believe, and we've had new $100, $10 and $5 bills for ages now.

Re:New bills

[mindstrm]

Yes - they are pulling the old bills out of circulation.

Notice the MAIN problem with counterfitting in Canada, and it was mentioned repeatedly in the article, is that people simply did not usually check.. because we didn't have a real big problem with fake bills previously.

Second.. US currency, outside the US.
As someone who spends US currency and lives in central america.. you are correct, but for the wrong reasons.

People here do indeed know how to detect fake US currency; in fact, they are probably MORE aware of it than most people in the US. US bills are very closely examined here by everyone, and there are TONS of fakes out there. Every bar I know has sample fakes they've caught people with.

Further to that.. if you are passing a fake here, the cops won't be called unless you are literally trying to buy something big with entirely fake money. A merchant finding a note to be fake will say "This is fake" and probably give it back to you, if he feels in the mood. Even the banks; on depositing money into a bank, if they find one US bill to be fake, they'll tell you so, punch a hole in it, and let you keep it. They would actually have to suspect you of trying to scam them before they'll get the authorities involved.

The reason counterfeitting is a much bigger deal in latin america is because, to put it plainly, it's a lot easier to get away with.

Counterfeitting something that is not legal tender isn't all that big a deal.. you won't go to the federal pen unless you counterfeit the local currency.

Drug cartels counterfeit because the distribution methods needed to profit from it are identical to those used for drugs.. they are already in a position to move the stuff without any additional effort or risk.

US currency Legal Tender

[SuperBanana]

businesses to stop accepting $100CDN bills, thus affecting literally millions of people

I was under the impression that doing so at least in the US was illegal, until I actually (gasp!) googled it to make sure I was.

First link was to the US Treasury Department's FAQ on just that subject: Legal Tender Status.

I always thought it was illegal to refuse currency, but that nobody enforced it. Learn something every day. Honestly- it should be illegal for businesses to refuse currency; I don't care about the inconvenience of them having to change a $50 or $100 bill; if it's all I've got and I need gas, food, or lodging, well, they should have to accept it. It's very easy for it to be an issue of safety, and absurd to have money in your pocket in the industrialized world and not be able to use it. Nevermind that it should not be compulsory to use plastic.

Simple, time spend spending them

[SmallFurryCreature]

Say you got a big stack of 10.000 notes. Now you want to convert them to real money. There are a numbed of ways to do it but the simplest is either selling the stack to someone else for real money who will then spend the fake or spend the fakes yourselve.

The way to do it is to buy goods with fake money and get real goods and real change. You can then return or resale the goods for more real money.

So why not $1 dollar bills? What exactly would that buy you? 1 Mars bar? That would only work if you had a very low initial investment to counterfeit and were just using it to take care of living expenses. Just the small problem then that there would be a steady stream of counterfits near your house with your finger prints on it.

You can buy more expensive goods with $1 dollar bills but people get suspiscious when you pay for a new car with a pallet of cash.

Counterfit money is the balance between being low enough in value to be easily accepted and high enough in value to be worthwhile spending.

Re:Summary of article...

[orenmnero]

Well, according to the Bank of Canada, 36 billion was in circulation in 2001, and 19 cents per person in circulation was counterfeit. Canada has a population of about 32,000,000, so 32,000,000 * 0.19 =~ 6,000,000. 6,000,000 / 36,000,000,000 = 1.67e-4. 40% of this value was accounted for by $100 counterfeits.

Now, the bank says there are about 1.1 billion notes in circulation, or 35 per person. If there is one counterfiet bill per 290 people, that comes to 32,000,000 / 290 = 110,000 counterfiet bills in circulation. So again 110,000 / 1,100,000,000 = 0.0001, or 1 bill per 10,000.

Obviously these places run around distribution rings and some places will see a much higher frequency than others. And one currency, the $20, accounts for 50% of counterfeits. So in comparison, those will be relatively frequent, while the others will be much less so.

http://www.bankofcanada.ca/en/review/summer04/ch an t.htm