The $7 Million Inkjet Counterfeit Scam

Making counterfeit money, it turns out, may not be as difficult as it seems. Albert Edward Talton, a man from Lawndale, California, figured out how to generate $7 million dollars in bogus currency using nothing more than an inkjet printer and supplies from Staples. Leader of a five-man counterfeiting ring busted in May of 2008, Talton, a man with little to no experience in graphic design or printing, created some of the most convincing phony currency in U.S. history.

A new article by Adam Higginbotham in the current issue of Details titled “The Most Notorious Counterfeiter,” profiles Talton and unveils the Secret Service’s three-year hunt to capture him and his co-conspirators.

This excerpt from the article vividly outlines Talton’s search for the perfect paper to print on:

When Talton set out to circumvent the U.S. Treasury’s security measures, he had no experience in counterfeiting, printing, or graphic design, and he didn’t even own a computer. His first attempts were made with a Hewlett-Packard all-in-one ink-jet printer/scanner/fax/copier, which could be picked up at the time for less than $150. Early experiments, printed on regular copy paper, were fuzzy, so he cleaned up the original image on a computer. But there was a problem, Talton says: “It wouldn’t take the mark.” Counterfeit-detection pens mark yellow on genuine currency but brown or black on fake. Talton didn’t know why. At first he thought the Treasury treated the paper, so he experimented with chemicals he found at the body shop and even tried dipping his notes in fabric softener. Nothing worked. Frustrated, he began taking a detection pen everywhere he went, trying it on whatever paper he came across. He was about to give up when one day, sitting on the toilet, he found himself staring at the roll of tissue beside him. He took out the pen: The mark showed up yellow. Talton discovered that toilet paper, the pages of Bibles and dictionaries, and newsprint are all made from the same kind of recycled paper pulp, and all take the mark. Newsprint is strong, and it has an additional advantage for the large-scale buyer: “Newsprint is real cheap,” Talton says.

[via Boing Boing]