8 ms·

Counterfeit U.S. Cash Floods Crime Forums

86 points by denwer 12y ago

bequanna 12y ago
>'MrMouse says his single-ply bills do not have magnetic ink, and so they won’t pass machines designed to look for the presence of this feature.' Clever tip for detecting counterfeits, found in comments: >'A good strong, neodynmium cylindrical magnet stuck to the side of something is a great way to check US currency. Just hold a bill by the corner and dangle it close to the magnet. The bill will show a slight, but very observable attraction. Easy and fast.'
- Justsignedup 12y ago
  nevertheless, I can hit my local CVS and pay with my $100. They will just check the security strip. Easy peasy.
  - iancarroll 12y ago
    I think the point was that these bills have said security strip.
    - maaku 12y ago
      Which was the GP's point as well.
  - ejr 12y ago
    This is a key point. Detection by human is fairly limited as they only use their own, easily fooled, eyes and a detection pen, which can be fooled if starch-free paper was used by the counterfeiter [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterfeit_banknote_detection_pen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterfeit_banknote_detection...
- deciplex 12y ago
  And all you need to do is keep a potentially deadly piece of consistently underestimated hardware in heavily-trafficked areas!
Justsignedup 12y ago
The primary question: How the hell do you get this to your door? If I was to order it to a physical box, I face major felony charges as the government has a website to hack, and I am not confident in some random dude's ability to secure his website with every known security hole patched.
- fiatmoney 12y ago
  Typically you ship to some drop address (e.g., a house you know is empty, or somewhere where they'll leave the package somewhere easy to surveil and pick up). There was a DC-area mayor who had drugs shipped to him in this kind of scheme (he was uninvolved) and had his house shot up by a SWAT team as a result. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berwyn_Heights,_Maryland_mayor's_residence_drug_raid http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berwyn_Heights,_Maryland_mayor'...
  - bequanna 12y ago
    In this case, wasn't a shipping employee involved? I seem to recall that the package (drugs, etc) was addressed to the Mayor's home but was intercepted at the distribution center by the shipping employee (involved in the scheme) before being delivered.
  - kourt 12y ago
    who had drugs shipped to him...(he was uninvolved) "had drugs shipped" is a little ambiguous: someone shipped drugs using the mayor's house as the destination; Mayor Calvo had no knowledge or involvement in this. Despite his lack of involvement, the SWAT teams shot both of his Labrador retrievers, including one that was fleeing. Photo of the mayor and the deceased: http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2009/09/19/PH2009091902247.html http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2009/09...
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  You don't. That's what minions are for :) Seriously, most people would order this for delivery outside the US (where it's even less likely to be detected if passed at a bank or bureau de change). If they want to use it in the US, order it for delivery elsewhere and tehn smuggle it in. Ordering for delivery by the USPS would be insanely stupid unless you had a very clearly document legitimate purpose. I'm a bit surprised Krebs didn't order some for himself - with his public standing as a security expert I'm sure his lawyer could work out a way for him to obtain some and then turn it over to law enforcment after assessing it. Of course, it's quite likely that this is some sort of honey trap designed to attract less astute buyers from the world of organized crime/terrorism.
ck2 12y ago
Do all bills have magnetic ink? I cannot seem to find a list.
- fredgrott 12y ago
  One dollars do not as of yet
  - ck2 12y ago
    But what about old $20 bills. Strange I cannot find a list. Kinda worried.
    - chiph 12y ago
      If you're relying on this one feature to detect counterfeits, that's a bad approach. Magnetic ink has been available for years to print onto fake checks (the account digits are MICR -- not just a pretty font) Side note: One of the techniques that check kiters used to extend the float time was to erase the info encoded into the magnetic ink, which meant the routing & account numbers had to be typed in by hand at the processing center. The introduction of character recognition software means that technique is no longer usable.
  - jrjr 12y ago
    they always did have a magnetic area under the 'united states of america' for bill readers.
  - Guvante 12y ago
    No one has found a way to make convincing one dollar bills for less than a dollar. Heck washing dollar bills is a way to get base paper for higher denominations. (one of the incentives for moving away from consistently colored currency)
    - teh_klev 12y ago
      Which was the premise of the first Jack Reacher novel.
grecy 12y ago
I lived in Ecuador for 5 months, which uses the US Dollar. A couple of local guys that worked for me had a lot of fun testing my abilities to detect fake bills, which are plentiful in Ecuador. Even when they gave me two bills and told me one was real and one was fake, I couldn't discern any difference after 5 months of them showing me all the tricks of the trade. The copies are extremely good, and I suspect not many people in the US are going to spend the time to check if a $10 or $20 is fake.
- justin66 12y ago
  > The copies are extremely good, and I suspect not many people in the US are going to spend the time to check if a $10 or $20 is fake. Many places will at least use the marker test on a $20.
  - crazypyro 12y ago
    From the article, the seller claims that the bills will pass the pen test, so that wouldn't help.
    - justin66 12y ago
      I was responding to a specific point grecy made. People will check a $20. I imagine they might even change their method of checking if a different type of counterfeit becomes popular. I've only ever seen the marker or a UV light used in public, but criminals aren't the only ones capable of adapting to new circumstances. Hopefully it's obvious that the seller mentioned in the article is probably not making or selling a darn thing. What authority are you going to go to when you find out the counterfeit currency you bought online anonymously with bitcoins was just a scam? His scam is, on a small scale, more profitable than actually manufacturing counterfeit bills and selling them. Which doesn't mean the seller won't get a visit from the US secret service if he's crazy enough to be running this scam outside of Russia or Nigeria or something...
      - cm2012 12y ago
        In NYC, at least, in 100s of places, I've literally never seen someone check a $20 in any way other than putting it up to the light, and that is 5% of the time. I'm sure it happens though.
dsl 12y ago
Note that Krebs hasn't verified that any orders have been received (fake "reviews" in underground forums are very common). Lots of people have claimed to sell fake currency in these marketplaces and are almost always a scam. This looks like one too.
- iancarroll 12y ago
  > (fake "reviews" in underground forums are very common) Do you have any references for that? Besides the top layer of these sites, I was under the impression that if you go down your "vouchers" go down with you.
  - dsl 12y ago
    10+ years of being involved in fighting cybercrime. He is mostly advertising on low end forums that don't have the established social networks that would punish false reviews.
- larrys 12y ago
  "Lots of people have claimed to sell fake currency in these marketplaces" It's actually possible to print realistic currency as long as it doesn't match (in certain ways) real currency. When I was in the graphics industry we would get memos from the secret service. I don't remember the specifics but one was the size of the bill. IIRC it doesn't have as much to do (as you would think) with an exact copy. So then the question becomes if you try to sell fake currency that isn't really even the right type of fake it's fraud. Same as if you sell any good online that isn't represented the way you describe it. And goes by the fraud laws. But here's the thing. Nobody is going to turn you in if you scammed them on buying fake dollar bills.
larrys 12y ago
My question was "is buying counterfeit money but not using it a crime". According to this, it's not: http://www.secretservice.gov/money_law.shtml http://www.secretservice.gov/money_law.shtml "Possession of counterfeit United States obligations with fraudulent intent is a violation" Specifically, at least on that page, it would not appear to be a crime to buy counterfeit money as long as a) you didn't use it and b) you didn't try to sell it.
- ck2 12y ago
  Police raiding your home might be fatal, so crime or not they don't have to prosecute you to solve their problem.
  - larrys 12y ago
    Police/prosecutors will generally try to build a case before they decide to simply bust into someone's house. And they work on that case for a long time because it needs to hold up in court. I'm not saying that it isn't possible (and of course depends on where you are) but if in fact the law specifically states that you have to either sell [1] or use the money (and not possess it - which was my hypothetical question) then I can't seem them breaking in w/o proof that that is the case. That's the "if". [1] Edit: Add manufacture as well...
    - ck2 12y ago
      You are kidding right? People's homes get raided all the time on just a phone call. They don't need a "case" and they will likely kill your dog just because they can. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatting https://www.google.com/search?q=police+kill+dog&gbv=1&prmd=ivns&source=lnms&tbm=nws https://www.google.com/search?q=police+kill+dog&gbv=1&prmd=i... (in fact both are becoming a very serious problem)
- amalcon 12y ago
  I'd be careful. I'm not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice, but that page only refers to posession. I seem to recall things existing that are legal to have, but illegal to purchase.
ableal 12y ago
It's funny that no one is checking serial numbers. Nowadays it would not be too hard to look up in a database if the number was issued, is in use elsewhere, or belongs to a destroyed note. Privacy, cost and protocol issues left as an exercise.
- mschuster91 12y ago
  Why not make the serial numbers also a EC digital signature?!
  - jbermudes 12y ago
    Wouldn't it still be susceptible to replay attacks?
    - wmf 12y ago
      Paper-based PUFs, anyone?
- kordless 12y ago
  > in use elsewhere Nope. No way to do that reliably with a piece of paper.
sjtrny 12y ago
A lot of this concern would be removed if the US switched to polymer notes. Visiting the US last year I was surprised to see people immediately suspicious of $50 notes that I gave them. I've never seen that happen in Australia, even with $100 note.
- barrkel 12y ago
  You're attributing one thing - suspicion of a particular denomination - to something which it may not be related to. It may simply be due to how common a particular denomination is used in the cash economy. In the Eurozone, €50 notes are very frequently used - it would be unusual to be specifically suspicious of that denomination - while €100 notes are far more rare.
  - mlvljr 12y ago
    I had my subconsciousness ping me I'd better buy something with that 500 Euro bill in the duty free shop when going to Europe last year :)
  - sjtrny 12y ago
    You could be correct although I saw many other people paying for things with $50 notes too. I didn't think they were rare. Maybe it is store policy to do the counterfeit checks on $50/100 notes?
    - UrMomReadsHN 12y ago
      I can count on one hand how many times I've had a 50 in my wallet. We normally use 20s in the US. When I worked in retail policy was to check anything larger than a 20.
  - sliverstorm 12y ago
    To support this, I almost never see $50's. The dominant bill in the US is the $20, followed perhaps by $1, $5, $10, $100 in roughly that order. (that's my own estimation though) Edit: Some data - http://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/coin_data.htm#volume http://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/coin_data.htm#v...
lostlogin 12y ago
This post reminded me of this. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_Diaries http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_Diaries The Robert Harris account is excellent and there is a great quote from the forger along the lines of "A document isn't real or fake, it's efficient of inefficient". I highly recommend reading the book.
lazyeye 12y ago
Related..I thought maybe you could claim it as prop money for the movies but no dice. "As it turns out, the Feds have strict laws about the production of fake currency. According to the Counterfeit Detection Act of 1992, a reproduced bill must be: a.) either less than 75% or more than 150% the size of a real bill, b.) one-sided, and c.) made with only one color (so as to discourage the reproduction of identifying factors). " http://priceonomics.com/the-business-of-fake-hollywood-money/ http://priceonomics.com/the-business-of-fake-hollywood-money...

86 points by denwer 12y ago

>'MrMouse says his single-ply bills do not have magnetic ink, and so they won’t pass machines designed to look for the presence of this feature.' Clever tip for detecting counterfeits, found in comments: >'A good strong, neodynmium cylindrical magnet stuck to the side of something is a great way to check US currency. Just hold a bill by the corner and dangle it close to the magnet. The bill will show a slight, but very observable attraction. Easy and fast.'

Justsignedup 12y ago
nevertheless, I can hit my local CVS and pay with my $100. They will just check the security strip. Easy peasy.
- iancarroll 12y ago
  I think the point was that these bills have said security strip.
  - maaku 12y ago
    Which was the GP's point as well.
- ejr 12y ago
  This is a key point. Detection by human is fairly limited as they only use their own, easily fooled, eyes and a detection pen, which can be fooled if starch-free paper was used by the counterfeiter [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterfeit_banknote_detection_pen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterfeit_banknote_detection...
deciplex 12y ago
And all you need to do is keep a potentially deadly piece of consistently underestimated hardware in heavily-trafficked areas!

Justsignedup 12y ago

The primary question: How the hell do you get this to your door? If I was to order it to a physical box, I face major felony charges as the government has a website to hack, and I am not confident in some random dude's ability to secure his website with every known security hole patched.

fiatmoney 12y ago
Typically you ship to some drop address (e.g., a house you know is empty, or somewhere where they'll leave the package somewhere easy to surveil and pick up). There was a DC-area mayor who had drugs shipped to him in this kind of scheme (he was uninvolved) and had his house shot up by a SWAT team as a result. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berwyn_Heights,_Maryland_mayor's_residence_drug_raid http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berwyn_Heights,_Maryland_mayor'...
- bequanna 12y ago
  In this case, wasn't a shipping employee involved? I seem to recall that the package (drugs, etc) was addressed to the Mayor's home but was intercepted at the distribution center by the shipping employee (involved in the scheme) before being delivered.
- kourt 12y ago
  who had drugs shipped to him...(he was uninvolved) "had drugs shipped" is a little ambiguous: someone shipped drugs using the mayor's house as the destination; Mayor Calvo had no knowledge or involvement in this. Despite his lack of involvement, the SWAT teams shot both of his Labrador retrievers, including one that was fleeing. Photo of the mayor and the deceased: http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2009/09/19/PH2009091902247.html http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2009/09...
anigbrowl 12y ago
You don't. That's what minions are for :) Seriously, most people would order this for delivery outside the US (where it's even less likely to be detected if passed at a bank or bureau de change). If they want to use it in the US, order it for delivery elsewhere and tehn smuggle it in. Ordering for delivery by the USPS would be insanely stupid unless you had a very clearly document legitimate purpose. I'm a bit surprised Krebs didn't order some for himself - with his public standing as a security expert I'm sure his lawyer could work out a way for him to obtain some and then turn it over to law enforcment after assessing it. Of course, it's quite likely that this is some sort of honey trap designed to attract less astute buyers from the world of organized crime/terrorism.

ck2 12y ago

Do all bills have magnetic ink? I cannot seem to find a list.

fredgrott 12y ago
One dollars do not as of yet
- ck2 12y ago
  But what about old $20 bills. Strange I cannot find a list. Kinda worried.
  - chiph 12y ago
    If you're relying on this one feature to detect counterfeits, that's a bad approach. Magnetic ink has been available for years to print onto fake checks (the account digits are MICR -- not just a pretty font) Side note: One of the techniques that check kiters used to extend the float time was to erase the info encoded into the magnetic ink, which meant the routing & account numbers had to be typed in by hand at the processing center. The introduction of character recognition software means that technique is no longer usable.
- jrjr 12y ago
  they always did have a magnetic area under the 'united states of america' for bill readers.
- Guvante 12y ago
  No one has found a way to make convincing one dollar bills for less than a dollar. Heck washing dollar bills is a way to get base paper for higher denominations. (one of the incentives for moving away from consistently colored currency)
  - teh_klev 12y ago
    Which was the premise of the first Jack Reacher novel.

grecy 12y ago

I lived in Ecuador for 5 months, which uses the US Dollar. A couple of local guys that worked for me had a lot of fun testing my abilities to detect fake bills, which are plentiful in Ecuador. Even when they gave me two bills and told me one was real and one was fake, I couldn't discern any difference after 5 months of them showing me all the tricks of the trade. The copies are extremely good, and I suspect not many people in the US are going to spend the time to check if a $10 or $20 is fake.

justin66 12y ago
> The copies are extremely good, and I suspect not many people in the US are going to spend the time to check if a $10 or $20 is fake. Many places will at least use the marker test on a $20.
- crazypyro 12y ago
  From the article, the seller claims that the bills will pass the pen test, so that wouldn't help.
  - justin66 12y ago
    I was responding to a specific point grecy made. People will check a $20. I imagine they might even change their method of checking if a different type of counterfeit becomes popular. I've only ever seen the marker or a UV light used in public, but criminals aren't the only ones capable of adapting to new circumstances. Hopefully it's obvious that the seller mentioned in the article is probably not making or selling a darn thing. What authority are you going to go to when you find out the counterfeit currency you bought online anonymously with bitcoins was just a scam? His scam is, on a small scale, more profitable than actually manufacturing counterfeit bills and selling them. Which doesn't mean the seller won't get a visit from the US secret service if he's crazy enough to be running this scam outside of Russia or Nigeria or something...
    - cm2012 12y ago
      In NYC, at least, in 100s of places, I've literally never seen someone check a $20 in any way other than putting it up to the light, and that is 5% of the time. I'm sure it happens though.

dsl 12y ago

Note that Krebs hasn't verified that any orders have been received (fake "reviews" in underground forums are very common). Lots of people have claimed to sell fake currency in these marketplaces and are almost always a scam. This looks like one too.

iancarroll 12y ago
> (fake "reviews" in underground forums are very common) Do you have any references for that? Besides the top layer of these sites, I was under the impression that if you go down your "vouchers" go down with you.
- dsl 12y ago
  10+ years of being involved in fighting cybercrime. He is mostly advertising on low end forums that don't have the established social networks that would punish false reviews.
larrys 12y ago
"Lots of people have claimed to sell fake currency in these marketplaces" It's actually possible to print realistic currency as long as it doesn't match (in certain ways) real currency. When I was in the graphics industry we would get memos from the secret service. I don't remember the specifics but one was the size of the bill. IIRC it doesn't have as much to do (as you would think) with an exact copy. So then the question becomes if you try to sell fake currency that isn't really even the right type of fake it's fraud. Same as if you sell any good online that isn't represented the way you describe it. And goes by the fraud laws. But here's the thing. Nobody is going to turn you in if you scammed them on buying fake dollar bills.

larrys 12y ago

My question was "is buying counterfeit money but not using it a crime". According to this, it's not: http://www.secretservice.gov/money_law.shtml http://www.secretservice.gov/money_law.shtml "Possession of counterfeit United States obligations with fraudulent intent is a violation" Specifically, at least on that page, it would not appear to be a crime to buy counterfeit money as long as a) you didn't use it and b) you didn't try to sell it.

ck2 12y ago
Police raiding your home might be fatal, so crime or not they don't have to prosecute you to solve their problem.
- larrys 12y ago
  Police/prosecutors will generally try to build a case before they decide to simply bust into someone's house. And they work on that case for a long time because it needs to hold up in court. I'm not saying that it isn't possible (and of course depends on where you are) but if in fact the law specifically states that you have to either sell [1] or use the money (and not possess it - which was my hypothetical question) then I can't seem them breaking in w/o proof that that is the case. That's the "if". [1] Edit: Add manufacture as well...
  - ck2 12y ago
    You are kidding right? People's homes get raided all the time on just a phone call. They don't need a "case" and they will likely kill your dog just because they can. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatting https://www.google.com/search?q=police+kill+dog&gbv=1&prmd=ivns&source=lnms&tbm=nws https://www.google.com/search?q=police+kill+dog&gbv=1&prmd=i... (in fact both are becoming a very serious problem)
amalcon 12y ago
I'd be careful. I'm not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice, but that page only refers to posession. I seem to recall things existing that are legal to have, but illegal to purchase.

ableal 12y ago

It's funny that no one is checking serial numbers. Nowadays it would not be too hard to look up in a database if the number was issued, is in use elsewhere, or belongs to a destroyed note. Privacy, cost and protocol issues left as an exercise.

mschuster91 12y ago
Why not make the serial numbers also a EC digital signature?!
- jbermudes 12y ago
  Wouldn't it still be susceptible to replay attacks?
  - wmf 12y ago
    Paper-based PUFs, anyone?
kordless 12y ago
> in use elsewhere Nope. No way to do that reliably with a piece of paper.

sjtrny 12y ago

A lot of this concern would be removed if the US switched to polymer notes. Visiting the US last year I was surprised to see people immediately suspicious of $50 notes that I gave them. I've never seen that happen in Australia, even with $100 note.

barrkel 12y ago
You're attributing one thing - suspicion of a particular denomination - to something which it may not be related to. It may simply be due to how common a particular denomination is used in the cash economy. In the Eurozone, €50 notes are very frequently used - it would be unusual to be specifically suspicious of that denomination - while €100 notes are far more rare.
- mlvljr 12y ago
  I had my subconsciousness ping me I'd better buy something with that 500 Euro bill in the duty free shop when going to Europe last year :)
- sjtrny 12y ago
  You could be correct although I saw many other people paying for things with $50 notes too. I didn't think they were rare. Maybe it is store policy to do the counterfeit checks on $50/100 notes?
  - UrMomReadsHN 12y ago
    I can count on one hand how many times I've had a 50 in my wallet. We normally use 20s in the US. When I worked in retail policy was to check anything larger than a 20.
- sliverstorm 12y ago
  To support this, I almost never see $50's. The dominant bill in the US is the $20, followed perhaps by $1, $5, $10, $100 in roughly that order. (that's my own estimation though) Edit: Some data - http://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/coin_data.htm#volume http://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/coin_data.htm#v...

lostlogin 12y ago

This post reminded me of this. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_Diaries http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_Diaries The Robert Harris account is excellent and there is a great quote from the forger along the lines of "A document isn't real or fake, it's efficient of inefficient". I highly recommend reading the book.

lazyeye 12y ago

Related..I thought maybe you could claim it as prop money for the movies but no dice. "As it turns out, the Feds have strict laws about the production of fake currency. According to the Counterfeit Detection Act of 1992, a reproduced bill must be: a.) either less than 75% or more than 150% the size of a real bill, b.) one-sided, and c.) made with only one color (so as to discourage the reproduction of identifying factors). " http://priceonomics.com/the-business-of-fake-hollywood-money/ http://priceonomics.com/the-business-of-fake-hollywood-money...