Former Secret Service Agent Explains How to Detect Counterfeit Money | Tradecraft | WIRED

Former Secret Service Agent Jonathan Wackrow explains how the Service keeps counterfeit currency out of circulation. The Secret Service was installed to combat counterfeit money during the Civil War, and the Service still to this day works tirelessly to suppress counterfeits. Counterfeiting has been a tactic used to try to destabilize the US economy for years, and the Secret Service employs a variety of techniques to detect fraudulent bills. Jonathan goes through some publicly available techniques that they, and anyone else, can use to figure out if a bill is real or fake.

Wackrow served in the Presidential Protection Division in Washington, DC, and managed numerous high-level security operations in the U.S. and abroad.



Also, check out the free WIRED channel on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Android TV. Here you can find your favorite WIRED shows and new episodes of our latest hit series Tradecraft.

ABOUT WIRED
WIRED is where tomorrow is realized. Through thought-provoking stories and videos, WIRED explores the future of business, innovation, and culture.

Former Secret Service Agent Explains How to Detect Counterfeit Money | Tradecraft | WIRED

[JosephSpadafino]

If this is what they're telling us, it's actually way more advanced.

[AwkwardYet]

counterfeiters: write that down! write that down!

[chrislanejones]

1. Never counterfeit US Notes
2. Make counterfeits of another countries notes that have less counterfeit protections.
3. Exchange them for US notes.

[gomezmario.f]

Secret service's job description is very weird..
one: protect the president
two: make sure no fake money is circulating.

[sergeantpickles]

Can’t wait to be briefly extremely interested in something I never cared about before like I am with all these videos lol

[KimberlyGreen]

With physical currency use declining, I wonder if that makes the Service's job easier or harder.

[reggin_spelt_backwards]

There is a small amount of cloth fibres in each bill. Its not 100% paper. Thats where it gets really tricky to replicate

[fm.s]

Bruh but a gas station clerk ain’t gonna check this

[mat]

The interesting thing is that although you might think it was so much easier to counterfeit bills back in the day because they had way fewer security features, in effect that is somewhat balanced out by the comparative lack of access to technology they would have had. It really makes it lot harder to counterfeit when consumer printers aren't a thing. Still, it's probably much harder today anyways. I think there was probably a sweet spot for counterfeiting when the equipment to do it was widely available, but the security hadn't caught up yet. Probably in the 1990's.

[SupremeLeaderKimJong-un]

I see they’ve been detecting our money

[Fabian__.]

That’s crazy anymore tips just curious?👀

[-.._.-_...-_.._-..__..._.-.-.-]

US currency used to be a coupon that you could exchange at the bank for gold. The US couldn't print more money then it actually had in the gold reserves. But that changed, and US currency is now just a social construct.

[FinancialShinanigan]

I hear all the counterfeiters taking notes.

[RadDadisRad]

3:47 gave me goosebumps, I wouldn’t want to be around that amount of money because I’d be afraid of what someone would do to take it.

[jonathanwilliams]

A classified security feature is useless
My job is to handle said currency and not accept fakes, if I am not allowed to know what I’m looking for then I won’t be able to spot fakes

[jessepaz]

I’ve been a Teller for a long time and came here hoping to find out something new but I did not, but for people who don’t know these things, it’s very useful information!

[tachyondecay]

Cool. Now do one about the security features on polymer-based notes used in other countries, please!

[autonomous]

I'm just a cashier lookin for ways to find fake bills. I wasn't expecting this to run so deep lol

[robertschlesinger]

Very interesting. I prefer to use $20s as if they are counterfeit, the loss is trivial. If I have a pile of bad $100s, the loss is significant.

[dancingdiva]

I knew we weren't gonna learn all the secrets or any of the guarded ones. But I was hoping for some history in either counterfeiting or how the dollar art has evolved a little.