Trama

A history of counterfeiting money.

This documentary looks at the fascinating crime of counterfeiting money, focusing on the vulnerability of the paper banknotes of the United States and Britain. The program starts with the story of "John", a modern-day counterfeiter who Xeroxed U.S. $50 and $100 dollar bills. After a brief discussion of the history of the earliest coins (and the first counterfeits) from the Greek province of Lydia in the 6th century B.C., we return to colonial America. The British attempted to copy the paper money of the rebellious colonists, in hopes of wrecking the economy of the new nation. The period of American history between the Revolution and the Civil War is known as the "golden age of counterfeiting", since there existed hundreds of different kinds of paper money issued by local banks, but no centralized currency. During that era, a mysterious couple traveled to Ohio and built the only house in the USA designed from the ground up for the purpose of creating fake money--the Counterfeit House overlooking the Ohio River in Adams County, Ohio, which still stands today. Just after the Civil War, one of the most bizarre episodes of American history unfolded when a counterfeiting ring, in an attempt to get their engraver out of prison, plotted to steal the body of Abraham Lincoln and hold it for ransom! The plot was thwarted by the U.S. Secret Service, created at the end of the Civil War for the primary purpose of preventing the counterfeiting of U.S. currency. Nazi Germany is another nation that used counterfeiting as a weapon of war. Inmates at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp were put to work creating fake British pound notes during World War II. Another attempt at counterfeiting the British pound was stopped by an American businessman working with Scotland Yard. Their target was a brilliant forger known only as the "Magician", who could produce counterfeit 5-pound notes almost impossible to detect. The program ends with a look at modern paper-money printing technology and anti-counterfeiting measures such as color-shifting ink and holograms.—yortsnave