5 of the Biggest Money Counterfeiters From the Past 100 Years

5. Albert Talton

While many of the counterfeiting operations outlined so far have been extraordinary by virtue of the elaborate lengths that the perpetrators have gone to so as to perfectly mimic legitimate currency, what makes Talton’s case a cause for wonder is its simple methods and lack of expensive equipment.

One of the most famous counterfeiters in the past 20 years, Albert Talton managed to print around $7 million dollars in fake bills. What made his story unique is that he didn't even have a professional background in printing or graphic design. His team used technology you can find in your average office store such as laser jet printers and computer imaging software.

How did he manage to print so many bills? By refilling his printer cartridges whenever they ran out at his local Staples store. Eventually as with many crime rings, they got busted by federal authorities. In this case it was after a three month investigation that the ring was busted and it happened after a Secret Service agent saw one of the rings members- Troy Stroud, pass a fake $20 bill at a Popeyes Chicken Resturant.

4. Wesley Weber

Wesley Weber was one of the biggest counterfeiters in Canada before his 5 year arrest in 2001. His fake bills caused concern to Canadian authorities because of how real they looked. This even led to Canadian Officials redesigning their $100 banknotes to fight off fake currency such as the ones Wesley Weber had passed.

Wesley Weber’s actions caused stores across Canada to refuse the $100 bill. His forgeries were so close to the real thing that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police considered them the best computer-produced fakes they had ever seen. In fact, the Canadian authorities redesigned the bill in part because of Weber’s success.

3. Alves dos Reis – 1920s

Alves Dos Reis thought big. Instead of counterfeiting bills, he forged a contract from the Banco de Portugal so that he could acquire banknotes from official printers – meaning his counterfeit notes were real, though still not legitimate. By 1925 he had pumped banknotes worth £1,007,963 ($1.7 million) into the economy, which was equivalent to just under 1% of Portugal’s entire GDP at the time.

The discovery of this crime led to the devaluing of the currency, a government crisis, and contributed to the nationalist military installing a dictator – a good counterpoint to the idea that white collar crime can’t hurt people.

2. Stephen Jory – 1990s

 Known as Great Britain’s most infamous counterfeiter, Stephen Jory started his fakery by decanting bargain-basement perfume into designer bottles and selling it as the real thing. He admitted to counterfeiting £50 million ($82 million) worth of bills, but authorities suspect that the real number was far higher. According to the UK’s Independent newspaper, his fake currency made up two thirds of the total number of counterfeit bills in circulation between 1993 and 1998 and even tricked UV counterfeit detectors.

1. Frank Bourassa

One of the biggest fake money stories in recent times was with Frank Bourassa, who got away with printing over $250 million in fake currency. Frank used a variety of techniques to make his banknotes appear authentic. He had one of the most sophisticated operations ever seen in this line of crime. He went so far as to outsource paper from mills in Switzerland and Germany so his money would have an authentic feel to it, and even coming up with cover stories to trick the paper mills to thinking it was for a legal money related operation.

He also did research into all the security features that banknotes have and made fake but realistic versions of the ultraviolet strips, color shifting eagles and watermarks, so to the naked eye if someone didn't check the bills with a counterfeit detecting machine, they would look authentic.

One of the biggest success' on Frank Bourassa's end was that after all of this, according to Frank, he ended up netting around $50 million dollars in real money and barely had to spend any time in jail.

According to U.S. law he could have gotten up to 15 years in jail so lucky for him that he got caught in Canada where he was running the operation.