Counterfeit Defense
The clerk at a Q Mart in Sheboygan, Wisc., called authorities after taking a suspicious-looking bill from a customer.
The clerk then called Joshua Isaacs, 30, and asked him if he had paid using a counterfeit bill. Yes, Isaacs responded, but it was an "accident".
He told police that his interest in graphic design led him to use Photoshop to see if he could successfully duplicate money. He claimed he inadvertently moved the counterfeit bill from his car to his wallet and ended up using it. Isaacs was arrested on February 15 and faces charges of felony uttering a forgery.
His Photoshop forgery attempt apparently wasn't all that successful either: the clerk called police after noticing the color of the bill was off and it had no watermark or security strip.
Joshua Isaacs, and his "I can't believe you don't believe it was an accident!" face:
Source: Sheboygan Press
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Most Recent Comments
Posted by Yasha, Israel on February 24, 2010:
Yeah, I "accidentally" make counterfeit bills in Photoshop all the time and put them in my wallet.
It'd be nice to see how bad (or good) a job this guy did.
...but in Photoshop and even using a good printer, he would likely not be able to duplicate any of the eight countermeasures built into US bills over $5 that I can think of off the top of my head.
(Note: the most telling: the "feel" of the cotton-based paper. One operation in Columbia [the country] was white-washing $1 and printing $100's on them. Obviously they didn't do too good a job: the Secret Service shut them down. What? The Secret Service? Yup: the Secret Service investigates counterfeiters.)
Posted by Paul-- Newburgh, NY, USA on March 14, 2010:
Yup, the Secret Service. That was the task for which it was originally set up. Bodyguard service game a bit later.
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It was formed in July 1865 as an arm of the U.S. Treasury, since about a third of currency in circulation at the time was counterfeit. Its formation was actually delayed a few months: the legislation to form it was sitting on the president's desk when Lincoln was shot, in April 1865. They were tasked to protect the president after William McKinley was assassinated in 1901. -rc