Counterfeiting of United States currency is widely attempted, with an estimated 70 million counterfeit dollars believed to be in circulation, or approximately $1 in counterfeits for every $12,500 in genuine currency, according to the Treasury Department. And Las Vegas and other casino destinations, where cash is king, are often targeted by those wishing to launder fake bills.
For example, we came across a 2007 article that focused on the case of an Asian couple from California who, in a five-day period that year, passed 60 counterfeit $100 bills through 13 slot machines at Caesars Palace. The bills were of extremely high quality and were not detected by the machines' bill validators, but the couple was caught nonetheless because they actually used their players cards, under their genuine names, while gambling, which enabled the casino to identify them from surveillance tapes.
It turned out their activities had been part of a sophisticated worldwide conspiracy to import high quality counterfeit United States currency, while the husband was also attempting to recoup $1.9 million that he'd lost at the casino over the previous two years. Chen Chiang Liu was sentenced to 151 months in prison on his conviction of conspiracy to import, transfer, and sell high quality counterfeit U.S. $100 bills; his wife was acquitted after trial.
While casino surveillance and security are hi-tech affairs these days, we were somewhat surprised to read in this article on the subject that slot-machine bill validators were not set to catch fake bills. The argument cited was that if they were, any scruffy genuine notes would also be rejected, which would negatively impact customer service if it happened on a frequent basis. We've all experienced bills being rejected, however--in the case of the current writer, both genuine and fake notes--so we wondered if that assertion still held true. We spoke to a couple of slot departments who said no, their bill validators do detect fakes, or at least they are designed to, if the counterfeit is not too sophisticated to outwit the machine.
Bill validators in the count room are even more hi-tech affairs, and a fake note is more likely to be detected at this stage. Still, according to the Secret Service, from April 24 to July 30, 2007, agents recovered some $80,000 worth of fake bills that were successfully passed through slots and cashed out for real money in Las Vegas; during the same period, about $123,400 in total in distinctive counterfeit $100 bills was recovered from casinos and Las Vegas businesses.
A different article we read from 2009 reported how the Secret Service was warning vendors, around the holiday season in particular, to be vigilant in looking out for counterfeit currency, with thieves targeting the busiest time of year to try and pass their dodgy notes. According to that piece, millions in counterfeit bills are passed around town to grocery stores, small businesses, and casinos each year. In the previous three years, over $3 million had been passed annually, for example, a sum reduced to less than $2 million by 2009.
We haven't come across any more recent stats than that, but presume that it's still a significant problem, due to the sophistication of the most advanced fakes--like the so-called 100-dollar "supernotes" thought to have been produced by a foreign nation hostile to the U.S.--giving detection devices a real run for their money these days. Click here to watch a clip from a 2009 "Dateline" episode called "Vegas Undercover" to watch a local man unwittingly demonstrating to undercover officers how he turns genuine $5 bills into counterfeit $100s.
