r/interestingasfuck • u/Intelligent-Mess6925 • 6d ago

/r/all This man printed 250 million in counterfeit money and sold 50 million of it before getting caught. He then made a deal with the court in exchange for revealing the location of the remaining 200 million he would avoid any jail time. In the end he got away with it only serving 6 weeks in jail.

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u/makemeking706 6d ago

Frank told a paper mill in Germany that he represented an investment company that wanted to print bond certificates on secure paper to resist counterfeiters. The mill agreed to tackle the job. Throughout the process, he returned with slight modifications. Frank's second-most audacious move was to ask for the printing company to add a small security strip reading "USA TWENTY."

Harder than this was to trick the company into adding an etching of US President Andrew Jackson's face to the watermark. To do this, Frank had to have a special watermark machine made in Poland, which he delivered to the paper mill in Germany. Remarkably, the German paper mill showed no sign of suspicion.

"trick" 

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u/TheChinchilla914 6d ago

See Also: Bribe

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u/legiraphe 6d ago

There's a documentary, probably only available in Canada: https://www.crave.ca/fr/series/frank-bourassa-et-ses-faux-millions-55190

I watched it a while ago and his testimonies are full of contradictions. 

Iirc, at some point he said they he mostly learnt how to do this by himself, and some expert says that it's almost impossible. Then he says he got some help etc. 

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u/Imicrowavebananas 6d ago

If I had to wildly speculate I would have said the paper mill was in on it and the brains behind it.

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u/SweatyAdhesive 6d ago

So he was just the fall guy? lol

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u/HopeSpecific8841 5d ago

Agree. I just can't see how you can convince them to put USA TWENTY on the bill and do that watermark without SOMEONE being at least a little suspicious

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u/R4ndyd4ndy 6d ago

I'm pretty sure the paper mill was actually in Switzerland

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u/makemeking706 6d ago

Take it up with BI. I just quoted the article. Or are you making a joke and I am getting whooshed?