Well, what do you know! It’s true, a printer really can help to catch counterfeiter money makers, just like Xerox and others claimed when they were caught having their printers secretly embed machine identification codes on every document printed by a printer.
Of course, this printer’s role in catching the bad guys had nothing to do with subterfuge, secret machine codes, or anything so forward thinking. Nope.
This is the tale of a ring making counterfeit money in Arizona. They had a sweet deal going – they would print the money, then use it to purchase items at Walmart, where two of their accomplices worked. They would make a point of always going through their accomplices checkout line, purchase their items with the counterfeit money, and then return the items for cash (I wonder if they ever got back their own phony money?)
But then the printer tripped them up. Not with secretly embedded machine code, or anything which the printer company or government had initiated.
The printer jammed.
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And so the counterfeiters took it in for repairs. And guess what the repair people found? Yep, brand new, crisp (albeit crumpled) paper money.
Authorities estimate that this ring, which has now been busted, was responsible for as much as ten percent of all counterfeit money in Arizona.
I sure am glad we have this high technology like the secret machine codes being embedded on the paper as it prints – that really made a difference, eh?
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It was probably the imprinting that caused the paper to jam so, yes, it did find the counterfeiters ;)