Counterfeit Cash: Difference between revisions

''We're stackin' 'em against the wall

''Those gangster presidents"''

Instead of robbing or stealing directly, some criminals prefer to make fake bills - that way, not only do they not have to pay for whatever they're "buying", they get real money back as change. It can be anywhere from one dude operating a low-grade printer out of his garage to a gang using a top-end press making super-bills. Sometimes, this extends to creating fake coins as well.

* "The Hunt for Greenback Jane" from ''[[Black Lagoon]]'': Jane wanted to create the perfect counterfeit bills, [[The Cartel]] that employed her wasn't happy with the [[Schedule Slip]].

* One ''[[Gunsmith Cats]]'' manga arc had counterfeit plates as its [[MacGuffin]].

== [[Comic Books]] ==

* This was the line of business for Mark Gor and Sung Tse Ho in [[John Woo]]'s ''A Better Tomorrow''

* During one sequence in ''[[Big Money Hustlas]]'', the counterfeiter Bootleg Greg tries to pay his tithe to the crimelord Big Baby Sweets with counterfeit bills. Sweets's bodyguard kills him and flips his bills over - they're only printed on one side.

* The events of the Ridley Scott film ''[[Black Rain]]'' are set in motion by a conspiracy by the Japanese [[Yakuza]] to distribute fake U.S. currency via [[The Mafia]], only a renegade Yakuza steals the counterfeiting plates.

* In the opening scenes of ''[[In the Line of Fire]]'', US Secret Service agent Frank Horrigan ([[Clint Eastwood]]) and his partner are busting a counterfeiter group. In [[Real Life]], as a part of the Treasury Department the Secret Service also handles financial fraud issues, as well as the protection service that's the focus of most of the film.

* In Christmas in Wonderland, two criminals plan to spread a large backpack full of counterfeit cash all over the West Edmonton Mall on Christmas Eve while the cashiers are least likely to spot it because they are so very busy {{spoiler|however, they drop the bag over the railing, and two kids start spending it almost getting their family in trouble, and ultimately leading to the gang's downfall.}}

* ''[[CSI]]'' (original series) ran into some counterfeit bills that the Secret Service had released on purpose—part [[Secret Test of Character]], part to track criminal organizations.

** ''[[CSI: Miami]]'' ran into some super-bills that were distributed from an off-shore gambling casino. (Wolfe got the hairy eyeball from Calleigh when he turned up with some on his person.)

* The main conflict of ''[[Drake and Josh]] [[The Movie|Go Hollywood]]'' is two thugs using a stolen money printer to get rich quick.

* In one episode of ''[[Psych]]'', Shawn and Gus worked alongside a government agent and his own psychic to catch an international counterfeiter. {{spoiler|Turns out that the psychic was in league with the forger}}.

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* One episode of ''[[Darkwing Duck (animation)|Darkwing Duck]]'' featured Bushroot developing a [[Grows on Trees|money tree]] that grew counterfeit bills. In addition, when the bills were placed into vaults, they would sprout into vines and carry the safes full of real bills back to Bushroot.

* One episode of ''[[Biker Mice From Mars]]'' featured the mice learning that Lawrence Limburger was using counterfeit money. At least until they destroyed his printing facility.

* In ''[[Batman: Mask of the Phantasm]]'', the first gangster victim of the Phantasm intended to launder a [[Briefcase Full of Money|briefcase]] full of the high-grade variety in his casino before his encounter with Batman (and Phantasm).

* While the gang on ''[[Hey Arnold!]]'' investigated a cave on Elk Island, searching for the legend of Wheezing Ed, they stumbled upon two guys who were making counterfeit '''pennies'''; when one suggested counterfeiting nickels the other acts like he's being a snob and if he wants to do something crazy like making fake dimes. The criminals however slowly realized the copper they had to buy and carve on cost a lot more than what they were trying to counterfeit...

* Daffy tried this on ''[[The Looney Tunes Show]]'' with a poorly drawn twenty dollar bill.

* Believe it or not, Mr. Krabs once did this at the end of an episode of ''[[SpongeBob SquarePants]]'' after a newspaper business he started went bust.

* ''[[The Little Rascals]]'' (animated version) episode "All the Loot That's Fit to Print" had the Rascals start their own newspaper, using a printing press that they didn't know was already being used by a counterfeiter. When Alfalfa found some of the counterfeit currency, he spent it, assuming that it was genuine. The counterfeiter was a rather [[Stupid Crooks |stupid crook]] who put ''his own'' face on the money. It was rather easy for the police to pin him to the crime when he was caught.

* [[Popeye (cartoon)| The Sea Hag and Bluto]] were pretty stupid too in one cartoon, counterfeiting $3 bills. (For any foreign Tropers reading, there's no such thing.) The portrait on the front was that of Benedict Arnold in the process of being hanged. Popeye and Olive quickly realized it was fake; [[The Ditz| Wimpy]], however, fell for it quickly.

* A Canadian teenager and his friends made a fortune producing counterfeit $100 bills. They made so many of them, in fact, that many retail outlets in Canada will no longer accept older $100 bills. Canada actually had to do a major redesign of the bills.

* William Chaloner, a seventeenth century coiner and forger, who became the bane of Sir Issac Newton's existence during the scientist's career as Master of the Mint.

* As in the aforementioned ''[[The Counterfeiters]]'', releasing counterfeit money into an enemy country to undermine its economy is a popular war tactic. The most infamous example would probably be during [[The American Civil War]], where the Union flooded the south with millions in bogus Confederate cash. Whether this worked or not is debatable. Most of the fake bills were instantly recognizable because they looked ''too good'', but many retailers still accepted them because the Confederate Dollar was already [[Funny Money]], anyway.

* Counterfeit Money is a frequent problem in China. However, only higher-value notes tend to be counterfeited. This results with an odd situation where the ''jiao'' (RMB equivalent of cents) notes are much lower in quality than the ''yuan'' notes, their texture almost resembling counterfeited money. The idea is that the ''jiao'' [[Funny Money|are worth so little]] that nobody would bother counterfeiting them anyway.

* An interesting variation occurred when a [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4489683/Woman woman] tried to pass off a novelty $1 million bill at a Wal-Mart in Georgia. She claims that she thought the bill was real, which if true means that she [[Too Dumb to Live|deserved what she got.]] Not exactly counterfeiting in the traditional sense, but it's noteworthy that the novelty bills in question got pulled from stores immediately thereafter. Unintentional counterfeiting?

* In an interesting inversion, a Swedish artist coined nine 10 SEK (a bit more than 1 USD) coins, that are normally made from a gold-colored alloy, of pure gold, marked them with an almost invisible mark, and put them into circulation.

* [http://www.nysun.com/on-the-town/little-old-moneymaker/9282/ Emerich Juettner] got away with counterfeiting for a decade (from 1937 to 1947) despite the poor quality of his fakes (printed on ordinary paper, with badly reproduced graphics and Washington's name misspelled) because he printed only modest amounts of fake money and because people rarely pay much attention to one-dollar bills. (Even when people did notice, they often preferred to keep the bogus bill as a souvenir rather than report it.) He finally got caught when there was a fire in his apartment and his equipment got tossed into the street by the firemen.

* There's another urban legend floating around about someone who successfully passed a $200 bill with George W. Bush's face on it. (Bush does not appear on any currency, and the US Treasury Department does not print a $200 bill).

* There have been reports that stores have refused to accept $2 bills (a valid but not commonly used bill) simply because the clerk didn't know that they were real.

* In a case that combined this with [[Did Not Do the Research]], Italian police seized 125 billion in counterfeit $500 million and $1 billion U.S. bearer bonds. No U.S. bearer bonds have been issued over $10,000.

* The adage "Don't take any wooden nickels!" dates from [[The Great Depression]], when counterfeiters would cut out little nickel-sized discs of wood and paint them so that they resembled a nickel if you didn't look too closely. One way to tell the difference was to bite on the coin; the 75% copper 25% nickel alloy of an actual five-cent piece is pretty hard against the teeth, but wood has some give to it and will allow you to leave tooth marks in it.

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Money Tropes]]

[[Category:Criminals]]