High schoolers counterfeiting money
 

This story is by no means new, but I'm bringing it up now because I wasn't part of the TFP last year when it happened, and there's an article about it in this month's Rolling Stone, so some of you may have just recently been made aware. The reason why I know about it at all is because the kids it's about were in my graduating high school class last year.

If you care to read, here's an article from the Washington Post. It's mostly about the basketball player involved, but you get the idea. A somewhat thorough article can be found in Rolling Stone.

The gist of it is, these idiots thought it would be a good idea to make some fake $20 bills and try to buy drugs in WV with them. Then they tried to use some at a local Silver Diner (fyi a chain restaurant), where one of the waiters recognized one of the guys, a local basketball star who at the time had a full ride to play ball at BU. They all were questioned by the Secret Service (who handles counterfeit money), and released without jailtime because they cooperated. However, some of the guys beat the shit out of this other guy cause they thought he sold them out, so they got slapped with intimidating a federal witness - bad idea. Somehow they got out of that too, and now basically they all have to lay low for a long long time or they all in it real deep.

My question is, what do people outside of our community think should happen to these guys? My opinion is very biased, because I knew those guys and I think that most of them are assholes and I wouldn't mind seeing them tossed in federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison. But subjectivity aside, I still think they should have gotten more than slaps on the wrist. I mean come on, a couple felonies apiece and they get some community service? Virginia is notorious for mercilessly bitch-slapping felons, and all these guys were over 18 when it happened. I think they got off way easy.

After re-reading the Post article, I strongly encourage you to read the RS article, which as far as I know is unfortunately not available online. If you're interested, that is.

I don't think that they should have gotten off so easily, I suppose.

I think that maybe stiffening the penalties for small-time counterfeiters will help to convince people like that that it's a bad idea to try to make a quick buck with a fake one. Sure, harsher penalties and more jail time cost taxpayers more money, but then so does the need to redesign bills every five years or so incorporating the l newest anti-counterfeiting techniques.

You'd be surprised how many counterfeit bills are out there, and imagine what would happen if you were given a counterfeit $10 or $20 as change for a purchase, or a counterfeit $100 when you cash your paycheck. All of a sudden, you, personally, are out that extra money.

Same here. Counterfeiting screws all of us, badly. There's enough counterfeiting occurring by foreign governments that the American public should not be contributing to the problem.

I knew two kids in highschool who printed fake $20's...the reason why they were caught: the back was printed upside-down. The penalty: nothing. They go to Cornell now...

That's pretty bad, but I've seen worse on my local news. Some idiot made fake cash that was noticably bigger than normal bills...unfortunately, a bigger idiot was behind the cash register and actually accepted it. The other bad one I know of was that someone made the fake money with NOTHING on the back of them, and it showed a clip of where the clerk actually took about $60 bucks worth of backless fake money.

I can't believe it would be so hard to get the big things right if you're going to make something like that.

If you handle lots of bills as a cashier does, you do not inspect each one to make sure its legal tender. Maybe if the bill was $100 or something, but I know that when i hand over the bills they dont check the backside to make sure it is real anywhere, they usually assume.

Egads!

They certainly should have had more than a slap on the wrist.

F***'s sake! My little brother had to go to court and had a big fat fine for riding side-by-side in a bike lane when he was 8....and that's not even a crime, near as I can tell.

Counterfeiting screws us all. Jeez. The real money in my pocket isn't worth enough as it is!

A kid i work with got caught counterfeiting $20's. He would of gotten along longer, but i guess his printer was running low on toner. He got like 30 days in jail and a fine. Thats it.

Actually, I spent a few years working in a casino, and now I work in a bank. One you get used to working with money, some counterfeits become pretty obvious--the paper is the wrong weight or the halftone from an inkjet printer catches your eye. Sometimes they just feel wrong.

The really good counterfeits are harder to catch, but they're also not the ones the kids make at home.

Couple of kids at my highschool tried using the school printers to make counterfit bills.

Needless to say, they got caught.

stupid. that's what i think of all of them.

try to get over even a little bit... then you should pay the price. don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

the school body president got caught counterfeiting when I was in 9th grade. I can't remember what happened to him, but it wasn't too severe. needless to say he wasn't the president anymore.

here at my college town, we had a bunch of $5 counterfit bills roaming around, it maid a big article in the paper, along with details on how to check if the bill is fake, unlike your town these people are being prosecuted to the full extent of the law, these people could care less who they are, they just want to end the counterfeiting

counterfeighting fucks up the whole economy, worse than shoplifting, because those bills will go to someone else, possibly and then, when they are discovered, government employees are in charge of tracking the whole thing down, waisting tax money, on something that should not go in the first place.

you fuck with money, you fuck with everything.

yea when punishment is not severe kids will continue to do those kinds of things

Ah, man. Way too lenient. I wonder how many people actually get away with it.