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I did a television appearance in Istanbul, Turkey once.
And this is before it was easy to do digital payments
of everything, so if you were a variety entertainer
moving from gig to gig, pretty much you didn't want
a piece of paper that promised you some amount of money,
you wanted currency.
And if you're an American, you wanted American currency.
And then they paid me in hundred dollar bills,
like I did the gig and I came back, and it was like
several thousand dollars, and they were like
"Okay, you ready to get paid?"
I'm like yeah, sure, whatever, and then they just started
putting hundred dollar bills in my hand.
I got unintentionally physically aroused.
And it was enough that I was like oh my god I'm holding
lots of money, it was pretty great.
>> [makes boing sound effect]
[laughing]
>> Announcer: The modern rogue doesn't counterfeit,
but sure knows a lot about it.
>> Money is so weird, they're just pieces of paper
that we believe in.
>> Did you know, that only eight percent of all of the money
in the world is physical currency?
>> Now, when you say money in the world, you're talking about
actual accounts, like my bank account says I have,
say a thousand dollars in it, you're saying that maybe
that thousand dollars isn't even in the bank.
>> It never existed, it's just a series of numbers
and a ledger somewhere.
>> Okay, well here's what I want to talk about,
is all of the weird mysteries of currency,
this is stuff we handle every single day
and yet there's so much about
a dollar bill that I don't understand.
>> Let's just start with the number 13.
>> 13 colonies, I know there are 13 arrowheads.
>> JASON: And then there's 13 stars above the eagles head.
>> BRIAN: Okay, that makes sense.
>> JASON: 13 steps up the pyramid.
>> BRIAN: That's clever, at the bottom here
it says MDCCLXXVI which I believe is 1776, right?
>> JASON: And how many characters are in there.
>> One, two, three, 13, that's intentional,
they picked that, that seems like a happy coincidence.
>> I think so. >> Right?
>> Like, yeah, right?
>> BRIAN: Dude, no wonder people
are terrified of the illuminati.
>> Oh, yeah.
This just looks like an illuminati ticket
to the illuminati show.
>> By the way that part that says Novus Ordo Seclorum
underneath, the story I always heard is that
it was an illuminati thing that meant like new secular order
or something, and that when the guy presented the bill,
FDR said what does that mean, and he said,
it means new deal, which I figure that's got to be
horse crap, right?
>> Okay, that is probably nonsense.
>> Too good to be real. >> Yeah.
Okay, so for all of the things that you see on a dollar bill
let's talk about the things that you don't see.
>> Okay.
Now you are hopefully not about to mention
the spider slash owl up in the corner that everyone
on every comment of every scam school video points out to me
and I'm sorry if you don't know if it's a spider
or an owl, it's clearly neither.
>> You're very passionate about this.
>> Okay, I, it's been ten years.
>> I don't know what it is.
>> Ten years of people telling me, okay, it's fine.
>> I'm actually talking about how 94 percent
of dollar bills have bacteria on them.
>> I would imagine even more, right?
Because think about it, it's got texture,
so a lot of skin can nest in it as it's handled,
it's handled by hands, you got germy skin,
you got dust mites and all that stuff
for them to thrive on, and have you ever,
have you ever laundered your money?
[laughing]
You never wash the stuff, right?
>> Seven percent of that 94 percent?
Is stuff that can be harmful to you.
>> All right.
>> Yeah, the flu out in the open, dies after 48 hours.
But it can live for ten days on a dollar bill.
>> Holy crap, I never thought about a benefit of going
to a cashless society would be that we would actually
save lives from this, this weird, like, like,
hi, I'm touching disease money,
would you like to touch disease money?
>> I don't want disease money.
>> Okay, not anymore.
>> That was actually the story of the game the Division,
they had some engineered plague that stuck to dollar bills.
And it wiped out most of the country.
>> That is awesome.
>> Yeah, I mean, horrible.
>> No, it's great, that's my plan.
I'm going to do that.
>> Oh, okay. >> Yeah.
>> Well let's get to work.
[laughing]
This is one I have trouble swallowing,
that 90 percent of all US bills
have traces of cocaine on them.
>> Okay, I also thought that was bogus,
but then when I read the explanation, first of all,
the money very often is transported with the cocaine,
so some number of bills get infected with cocaine,
of course when we think of cocaine you think of snorting it
up your nose with a rolled bill, which I'm sure that happens
as well, but think about it, one of those coke bills,
that's been used to snort, goes into population
where all it does is rub up on other bills,
so think about the rollers on the ATM
as they're feeding the bills in and out,
they're getting covered in trace amounts of cocaine.
>> There's cocaine everywhere.
One of my favorite misconceptions about money
is about the 100 dollar bill.
>> Is it that people think Benjamin Franklin
was a president?
>> Yes!
>> No way.
>> So many people think Benjamin Franklin was president.
>> People are dumb.
>> He was probably the most awesome founding father.
>> They're the opposite of Benjamin Franklin.
>> But everyone thinks yeah, dead presidents,
gimme some of those Benjamin's.
>> Then they correct you, they're like, I said dead
precedence, he set quite a precedent as a man of science.
Was there ever a bill bigger than the 100 dollar bill?
>> Oh, yeah.
There was like a $100,000 one, I think?
>> Why would you, that's like a bit from the Simpsons.
>> With Woodrow Wilson on it?
>> Really? >> Yeah.
>> So what's some information you can glean
just by looking at a dollar bill, because things
I know is first of all, we've talked about sequential
bills before, when you get them brand new
from the bank, they're all in order.
And in fact there's magic tricks you could do
when most of the serial numbers are the same
and you can alter just one.
>> Yeah, also, that letter, the first letter on there,
the L whatever?
>> BRIAN: Yeah.
>> JASON: That tells you what federal
reserve bank that it came from.
>> Oh, there's what like, 12?
Or I'm going to guess, 13 since 13 colonies.
>> It goes up through L, is L the letter 13?
>> 12! >> 12.
>> There's only 12.
>> There's a hidden one somewhere.
>> There's got to be, right?
>> M is hidden somewhere under New Mexico.
>> On the back of each one dollar bill you'll notice
there's an individual number right there,
which I believe is the plate that it was printed on.
And so there's actually magic tricks that we've put together
on Scam School where you can identify, you can have somebody
write information on one side, and then they're kind of
marked because you could see this ones 12, this ones 55,
and you're able to, to hand everyone back their bill.
>> Did you know that much of the ink
on American currency is magnetic?
>> Yeah, in fact that was my favorite thing we did on hacking
the system, we had four counterfeit bills
and one real bill, and you were able to watch
as a magnet just pulled it [mumbles] in fact do we have
magnets, can we try that?
>> Yeah, let me get some.
>> Okay, so this is one of those powerful neodymium magnets.
>> JASON: There are some metal detectors
used by federal agencies that are so strong
and so precise, they can tell exactly
how much money you have in your wallet.
>> The actual different denominations?
>> Yes.
>> I guess there's some finite amount of ink
that's going to be different on a five than on a one.
>> And all of this is intentional,
all of this super fine detail.
>> That's partly because it's difficult to print
with such precision, right?
>> Yes, it's all anti counterfeiting measures.
>> All right, can we talk about counterfeiting?
>> Yes.
>> Do you know who was obsessed with counterfeiting
and counterfeiters?
>> JASON: Who?
>> Isaac Newton.
He was appointed warden of the mint,
and used to love on a Sunday afternoon,
going and watching the hanging of counterfeiters.
>> Oh, look how gravity works!
[laughing]
So if you were going to counterfeit some money,
how would you do it?
>> Well the toughest thing is getting ahold of something
that feels like money paper, right?
>> JASON: Right.
>> So I would imagine you would start with real money paper
or secure it somehow, if you had actual money,
maybe you could bleach it and then print
a higher denomination on it?
>> That's actually what one woman did, a hairstylist
in like, the Northeast?
She actually used de-greaser and scrubbed off all of the ink
of lower denomination bills with a toothbrush.
>> You know there's a classic scam that works this way.
Somebody shows up and they has a whole bunch of bricks
of just black paper, it looks like.
And they say look, here's the thing, these are all hundred
dollar bills, they've been completely inked on both side
with a special kind of ink, and only this solvent will
reduce it, so they sure enough, they grabbed, like grab any
of those, they grab a piece and you take this black paper,
you put it in this stuff, and then you do this process
and that process, and it's very fancy, and then at the end
it's a hundred dollar bill, you're like yeah,
they're all hundreds, you're going to have to take some time
with all of this, I got to get rid of it because
this is all criminal drug money,
so you just take all of this.
I'll tell you what, I'll give you ten bucks on the dollar.
This is ten million dollars, just gimme a million dollars
and you can do it all yourself.
You're like great.
And of course, it's nothing but construction
paper and a lie.
>> And then someone is really wanted
for the rest of their life, hunted.
>> My guess is that you've crossed a bridge at that point.
That's probably un, not unfamiliar territory.
>> One of the other notorious counterfeiters had taped over
all of the like, serial numbers and so forth,
and then soaked it in bleach, and then reprinted
higher denominations on top of these bills.
>> So they were genuine serial numbers, just with the wrong
denomination on there.
>> Exactly.
>> That's a victimless crime, right?
You can get away with doing that forever?
Not so much?
>> No, I don't think so.
In fact, a common war technique when two countries
are at war, are to print lots and lots
of counterfeit bills, to over inflate their economy.
>> That's not even a wartime thing, North Korea
is the number one supplier of 100 dollar
counterfeit bills, in fact they're so good,
they're so perfect, they're called super bills.
Because they're dead on the nose.
I've also read that Iran at some point had a large
counterfeiting operation as well.
>> That makes sense.
It's all in an effort to destabilize your enemy.
>> Which is so brilliant because you can use it
in the country that you're trying to take down,
and you get their resources, and in exchange
they get nothing.
>> Yeah, plus during wartime countries would use
this money that they had counterfeited to pay
informants that were living in that country.
>> Oh, double sucker.
>> Yeah, for academic purposes.
>> Sure.
>> Let's walk through the exercise, if we were going
to counterfeit something, how would we do it?
>> Not that I would, but if I was going to,
first of all I would get some kind of dark web
enabled PC, something with relative anonymity,
I would imagine somewhere in the dark web are high quality
scans of currency like this, right?
>> And that is important because a lot of photo editing
software won't let you edit bank notes.
>> As a magician, I can verify that the moment you try
to scan one of these, photoshop pops up and is like,
come on man.
>> JASON: Really?
>> BRIAN: What are you doing? >> Really?
>> What are you doing, yeah.
>> Now that's not all of 'em, you can still get it done.
>> Oh sure.
>> Yeah, you can, you know set it at it's highest DPI scan
and get a good image, but, printing it is another problem.
>> Now, is it a case where once you print it
they can tell what printer it comes from?
>> Yes, they were able to actually recently track down
the documents that were leaked from a government
contractor because of the little yellow dots on the printer.
>> Okay, so you're talking about the thing where every single
print out on any inkjet has a digital signature embedded
in it, they can figure out the exact serial number
of the exact printer that any document came from.
>> Yes, the electronic frontier foundation decrypted them
a couple of years ago and determined that it's the date,
the time, the serial number, and maybe even some other
information that helps them track down exactly
what printer this document came from.
>> So you would need an untraceable printer.
>> Yes, and even then it won't help because of all
of the security measures.
>> Yeah, so you're talking about like fine detail,
some of the printing is too precise
for many inkjets to be able to handle.
>> Yeah, and the ink as we've already determined
is magnetic, on some of the bills
it's actually color changing as well.
>> Yeah, I know, I'm looking at the 20 right now,
if you hold it on this side it looks green,
on this side it looks orange.
>> And the bells on the 100 bill seem to dance.
>> Oh, really?
>> When you move them back and forth.
>> I've never done that one.
There's also watermarking on there, you're able to see
like ghost faces of dead presidents and all that stuff.
>> Check it out, since 1990 the ten dollar bill
has had tiny crisp writing that
is almost impossible to fake.
>> BRIAN: Where?
>> JASON: Yeah let's see, where is it, I'm trying to find it
on here somewhere.
>> First of all your eyes are garbage.
>> Oh, they really are.
They're terrible.
>> BRIAN: Well, if it's there, I can't see it.
We'll have to rely on the internet.
>> That's why when you counterfeit something.
>> Oh, oh, oh, I think I read something.
Look at that, you can barely see over Hamilton.
>> JASON: Oh, wow.
>> BRIAN: Wow, look at how fine that is.
It says on there.
>> Show us what you got.
>> No, it says the United States of America ten dollars
the United States of America.
That's amazing.
>> You can barely even see it.
>> No, you can't even tell that it's on there.
>> JASON: Yeah.
>> It looks like, just part of the pattern.
>> Everyone knows about the security strip, right?
>> You're not talking about the red and blue fibers
in the paper?
>> Oh, no but there are red and blue fibers
threaded into the paper because what a lot of people
don't realize is that it's more cloth than paper.
>> Yeah, well and part of that is durability
because paper's going to fall right apart.
I mean think about how many times you've put
currency in your pants, washed 'em and then it's been
just fine afterwards.
>> Yeah, it's like 25 percent cotton, 75 percent linen.
It's called rag paper,
and it's really hard to get your hands on.
So, all of the bills have a security thread in them.
So if you hold it up to the light,
you can see the security strip there.
>> And the security strip actually
glows under a UV light, right.
>> Yeah, and each one is a different color.
>> Well, here let's try it out.
Okay, so on the ten dollar bill.
There it is.
>> JASON: Oh, wow, it's dramatic too.
>> BRIAN: Yeah, it's super, totally pops.
>> JASON: Orange.
>> BRIAN: 20 has one for sure.
>> JASON: 20's bright green.
>> BRIAN: Do you have a bet on what the color
for the five will be?
>> JASON: Blue?
>> BRIAN: That's the only one left, right?
Yeah it is, it's blue.
>> JASON: There it is, it's blue.
>> BRIAN: Dude that's awesome.
>> And another way that they can tell,
an easy way, is to take what's called a counterfeit pen
that has an iodine solution in it.
You drop it onto the paper.
>> This is the thing they do at the bank,
where they, they strip it on there.
That's iodine?
>> It's an iodine like solution from what I understand.
>> Okay.
>> And it changes the color, and let's you know if it's
a counterfeit bill or not.
>> All right, so money's hard to fake,
there's a billion security measures,
and I would imagine that the penalties are pretty terrible
if you get caught counterfeiting.
>> Usually, but, there is one guy, Canadian Frank Bourassa.
He is a legend along the lines of your hero, Frank Abagnale.
>> All the Frank's.
>> Yes, all the Frank's, Frank Bourassa convinced
a Swiss paper company to sell him the actual type of paper.
>> Wait, he just straight up bought the right paper?
>> Yes.
>> I thought that was illegal or something?
>> He spent $300,000 to make $250,000,000.
>> Wait a minute, so you're saying like he full on,
he bought a press and just built, like, like,
made his own superbills himself.
>> JASON: Yes.
>> $250,000,000?
>> In American money, but he cut a deal
with the Canadian authorities.
>> So he was not in America doing this.
He was in Canada, making American money where I imagine
the penalty is like come on man, knock it off,
you're going to cause trouble with our neighbors down south.
>> He cut a deal to turn over $200,000,000,
he only told them $200,000,000, there was 250.
He cut a deal, and Canada agreed not to extradite him.
>> Wait, so, so, okay, so, so, so, America I'm sure,
a quarter billion dollars, America wants him really bad.
Canada says, oh, come on eh, don't be that way.
>> JASON: Yep.
>> We're just hanging out at Tim Horton's, I'll borrow
your crayons and give 'em back tomorrow, take off.
>> Yeah, you're, you're very good at your Canadian accent.
That's exactly what happened.
>> Okay, but, he gives the money, or what they think
is all the money, but he didn't even
give all the fake money?
>> He didn't tell them about the extra 50,000,000,
he signed the deal, and then they found out
there was another 50,000,000, but they couldn't do anything
because the deal was a deal.
>> Wait a minute, so, so, did he do any jail time at all?
>> No, he paid a small fee.
Yeah, and now he works as a government consultant
for business fraud.
>> I have a new hero.
A new favorite Frank, I have two Frank's.
I have Frank Abagnale and Frank.
>> Bourassa.
>> Bourassa, holy cow that's amazing.
Frank, please write us, we'd love to have you
on the Modern Rogue.
>> He's in the pantheon of the Modern Rogue.
>> Yeah, he is.
How long do you think cash is even going to be around?
>> We're probably going to have to switch to bottle caps
in the next like, two years.
>> Yeah, because I plan to blow up civilization.
>> The Modern Rogue ends civilization.
[laughing]
>> Kid, grab your stealth boy, it's on.
Should we even explain to the people at home?
>> Nope.
We're going to edit these out in post.
This isn't going to be in the actual episode is it?
Don't look directly at the cat.
>> BRIAN: Otherwise it'll hypnotize and [mumbles]
>> Don't acknowledge the cat.
>> Okay but we should tell them about our sponsor
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>> Yeah, but you have complete control.
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[laughing]
>> Go to privacy.com/rogue, sign up,
and you got 24 hours, the first purchase you make at
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>> JASON: And you can get Modern Rogue t-shirts.
>> Yeah, you could get magic stuff, we got spy stuff,
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>> I mean taco cat's pretty rad but I mean,
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>> You can't defend yourself from taco cat.
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>> That's right.