In film and television works, there are usually wonderful sections of manufacturing and selling counterfeit money, such as the movie “Wushuang”, but Arthur Williams, who was born in a slum in the United States, is the boss of the real version of counterfeit money. When he was 16 years old, by chance, he saw the whole process of making counterfeit money mysteriously, and since then embarked on the legendary road of making money by making counterfeit money. However, what is unexpected is that in 2003, he actually stumbled in a low-end deception, but from this he has embarked on another legendary road…
Mysterious man
Arthur Williams had an unhappy childhood. He was born in 1972 and lives in a slum in Chicago, USA. When he was very young, his ears were often filled with the noise of his parents. After he was a little sensible, he knew that his father had betrayed his mother and had an affair with other women. When Arthur was 9 years old, his mother finally couldn’t stand it anymore. After a quarrel with his father, she pulled Arthur up and left home in a huff. From then on, the mother and son depended on each other, and life was even more stretched.
My mother worked as a waiter in a small restaurant. Her income was not high, but she was very busy at work, so she had no time to discipline Arthur. Gradually, with no one to control, Arthur started fooling around in the streets, doing some sneaky activities. When he was bored, Arthur would go to the restaurant to talk to his mother. I don’t know when, he found that a mysterious man often came to his mother. Men don’t talk a lot, and most of the time, their mothers talk about it, nothing more than complaining about life, or talking about the current situation. The mother said that his name was Leonardo da Vinci, and he was a guest who came to the restaurant for dinner. The more often he came, the two became acquainted. Da Vinci was well dressed, but looked a little lonely. Arthur rarely came into contact with well-dressed people, so he curiously asked him what occupation he was in. “I’m in the construction industry.” Da Vinci shrugged, unwilling to elaborate.
Arthur is still walking on the street, but he has an old friend named Leonardo. In 1988, Arthur suddenly rushed into the restaurant and asked his mother for money. It turned out that his 14-year-old girlfriend was about to give birth. He really had no money, so he had to come to his mother. At that time, Da Vinci happened to be there, but he was silent. The mother is not angry, but now there is no other way, so she has to pay: “My God, you child knows all the time to make trouble.”
After Arthur got the money, he turned and ran. At this time, Da Vinci chased it out: “It’s no way for you to go on like this. Let me teach you a skill to make money.” “What skill to make money?” Arthur came with interest, his eyes gleaming. “Come with me.” Da Vinci said briefly, and then led Arthur to a small hidden workshop. Until this moment, Arthur did not know that what this mysterious man had to teach him was to make counterfeit money. It wasn’t until this moment that Arthur realized what Da Vinci’s real career was.
Da Vinci said calmly that their family had been making counterfeit banknotes a long time ago. This technology has been passed down for hundreds of years since their hometown in Italy. He felt that Arthur was clever enough and had a relationship with him, so he decided to pass on his skills to him. “Awesome!” Arthur screamed with excitement. But before officially teaching Arthur, Leonardo made three requirements: First, you can’t easily tell people around you that you’re making counterfeit money; second, you can’t use the counterfeit money you made in your place of residence; third, you can’t Be greedy, don’t print a lot of counterfeit money at once. Arthur nodded without hesitation.
Da Vinci officially began to show the whole process of making counterfeit bills. He made old versions of counterfeit bills. In addition to the details visible to the naked eye, this version of US bills also contained very small red and blue anti-counterfeiting threads. The first step Da Vinci did was to make a plate. First take a photo of a brand new one-hundred dollar bill, and then use an arc lamp burner to illuminate the negative of this photo. After the strong light passes, the pattern of the negative can be printed on On the metal printing plate, a shallow layer of pattern will be burnt on the metal printing plate. Then, use a chemical reagent to clean the metal printing plate to make the pattern on it clearer. This process is very technical, and it is difficult for ordinary people to do it. The next step is to adjust the ink and prepare the paper for counterfeit bills. Da Vinci’s greatest strength is that there are ways to buy paper for US bills. The paper contains the red and blue anti-counterfeiting threads of the old US bills. Finally, printing the counterfeit banknotes with a printing machine is done.
Arthur was extremely excited when he watched the counterfeit bills being printed out. He happily said to Da Vinci: “This is exactly the same as the real thing!” But Da Vinci looked calm, even a little lonely.
Two weeks later, Arthur and his 14-year-old girlfriend broke up peacefully, and their children were sent to the orphanage. Arthur ran to the restaurant again to find Leonardo, and wanted to officially start making counterfeit bills. But his mother told him that since Leonardo chased him out that day, he had never been to the restaurant again, as if mysteriously disappeared. Mother didn’t know where Da Vinci lived.
Arthur suddenly remembered what Leonardo had said, and could not easily tell people around him that he was making counterfeit money. Did he feel that he violated the rules of making counterfeit money, so he chose to disappear? Arthur doesn’t know, but what is certain is that now he can only try to make counterfeit money with his own memory.
The road to counterfeit bills
Making counterfeit banknotes did not go smoothly as expected. Arthur first found a basement with cheap rent as a banknote printing place. In addition, Chicago was the city with the densest printing industry in the world at that time, and Arthur also easily got a printing press, and he even got a computer. But where does the paper come from? This is the first problem Arthur encountered.
After thinking hard, Arthur finally spotted a newsprint manufacturer, and then pretended to be a student who needed paper to make a report, and got a few rolls of paper. Arthur stroked the paper. Although the paper was very close to the feel of a banknote, there was no red or blue security thread. Moreover, in the actual operation, Arthur really realized that what he had learned before was just a fur, and making fake banknotes was not easy at all.
Arthur once gave up making counterfeit banknotes, but has been a street gangster, he is still bored after all, especially after dating Kate. Kate is a girl with a decent career, and she admires men with courage. For her, Arthur wanted to do great things. In 1992, Arthur restarted his self-study. After hundreds of failures, he finally figured out a new way to make fake banknotes: use the PS software in the computer to compare and adjust the colors of the real banknote photos. , And Franklin’s portrait was printed digitally, and the rest, including red and blue anti-counterfeiting silk, were printed using traditional printing methods. Because other parts are too fresh with digital printing, they appear distorted. In this way, Arthur, through his own groping and hard work, actually printed counterfeit money.
So, the last question is, who are these counterfeit banknotes sold to? Arthur felt that he had to sell to the gang’s big brother to help open the market. In February 1993, he met with Johnny, the Chicago gang eldest brother, through some friends he had fooled around with. After seeing the sample, Johnny was very satisfied, and immediately stated that he would order 100,000 counterfeit banknotes, and the exchange ratio was 25 cents for real money for 1 dollar.
Johnny tasted the sweetness from Arthur and introduced a few customers to Arthur, and Arthur’s business grew. With more and more money, Arthur began to spend extravagantly, such as going to a bar to invite everyone to drink, or even throwing money madly in public, in a posture of not giving up unless the money is spent. He thought it was cool, but it was childish and ridiculous in Kate’s eyes, and she coldly offered to break up. Arthur was very injured and surprised: “Do you have another man?” Kate did not hide: “Yes, he is a policeman, much better than you!” Arthur suddenly felt like he was hit by someone. No matter how much she earns, Kate feels that it was obtained illegally by printing counterfeit money.
In September 1994, the frustrated Arthur lost the motivation to make counterfeit money and moved to Texas to start a new life. He met Anna there, and the two got married six months later. At the same time, Arthur had spent almost the money he made by printing counterfeit banknotes. He had no proper education and still had to be a gangster on the street. In 1996, Arthur was arrested for theft and sentenced to 3 years in prison. In disappointment, Anna ended this short marriage with him.
In 1999, Arthur was released from prison after serving his sentence. Just as he was struggling with his future employment and life, he suddenly made a major discovery: A few months after he went to prison, the US dollar experienced a revision. After a revised version of 100 US dollars, many anti-counterfeiting technologies have been added. Franklin’s portrait has become very large, and many fine lines have been added to it. If scanned, moiré patterns will appear. The advantage of this is that if you want to use scanning to make counterfeit banknotes, it is simply impossible. In addition, the watermark of Franklin’s portrait also appeared in the new version of the US dollar, and the 100 yuan in the lower right corner will change color at a special angle.
The revision of the US dollar made many counterfeit bill makers retreat, but Arthur faced the difficulties. He likes challenges, and challenges can make him feel that his life is still alive. In addition, I have to say that Arthur is very feminine. Soon after he was released from prison, he caught up with a smart girl named Amber. Amber was docile and very supportive of Arthur’s decision.
Arthur had to solve the paper problem first. At that time, the US used a counterfeit detector to check counterfeit banknotes. If it is a counterfeit banknote, the paper will change color, but the real banknote will not change color. Arthur quickly found a paper that was used as a phone book at the time. He tried it with a money detector, and the paper did not change color.
Next, Arthur has to solve the problem of discoloring ink. This was originally a very difficult problem, but one day Arthur happened to pass by the parking lot and saw that the paint color of a Ford Mustang changed with the angle. He immediately called the car factory and found out after asking that there were some color-changing pigments available on the market. Arthur observed that there was still a difference between these color-changing pigments and those on banknotes, but when most people inspected banknotes, they only looked for color changes, and did not pay attention to the color tone.
As for the watermark, Arthur thought of a wonderful method: superimpose three sheets of paper, and the semi-transparent paper in the middle was used to draw Franklin’s head. After the three sheets of paper were superimposed, it looked like a watermark under light transmission. As for the lines on Franklin’s head, Arthur asked Aimeber to use the PS software to compare the lines repeatedly, and finally made a fake effect. The most wonderful thing is that the three sheets of paper are stacked together, and they are exactly the same weight as the real banknote.
Arthur was ecstatic, and once again made a high-copy version of the 1996 new dollar bill. But these counterfeit banknotes can’t continue to be sold to gangs like Johnny, because Arthur suddenly stopped doing it because of Kate’s affairs and went to Texas, breaking Johnny’s money. Arthur thought to himself, since he can’t sell, he should launder money by himself.
The so-called money laundering is the exchange of fake money for real money. Just do it, Arthur and Amber discuss going to a shopping mall to launder money. Of course, this is also a technical job. Before spending fake money, they first estimated how long it would take for the police to get to the shopping center from the nearest police station. Later, Arthur was in charge of the wind, and Amber was in charge of the consumption. She specially selected very old clerk or absent-minded sales clerk. After Aimeber succeeded, they immediately left and changed to another place.
In this way, Arthur and Ambere traveled all over the United States while shopping and making money. Until 2003, Arthur had made more than ten million dollars in this way. But Arthur was not dazzled by money. He was still very meticulous every time he made counterfeit bills, even fine-tuned and optimized every time, and every counterfeit bill was personally inspected.
However, even though Arthur was cautious everywhere, he still could not escape the dramatic scene.
Legendary life
On April 12, 2003, Arthur and Ambere watched a movie in the cinema. It was a very warm movie that told the story of father and son reunion. After reading it, Arthur was silent for a long time, and involuntarily remembered his father who had not been in contact for 12 years. Although his father was not kind to his mother back then, after many years, Arthur had no hatred in his heart.
In May 2003, with Amber’s encouragement, Arthur recovered his long-lost father. The father has a new wife, but life is still difficult. “You seem to be doing well.” Father looked at Arthur. Arthur raised his mouth, said nothing, and took his father on a carnival tour of shopping and money laundering with pride. The half-dead father had never seen so much money. He was very happy and moved: “Arthur, what are you doing for business? You make a lot!” Only then did Arthur confess that he was making counterfeit money. , And showed his father the counterfeit banknotes he printed.
“It’s exactly the same as real!” Father exclaimed that Arthur had talent. When Arthur was a child, he never got his father’s attention and praise. He heard his father’s heartfelt admiration, and felt that he had made up for his previous shortcomings at once. He felt happy and gave the remaining counterfeit money from the money laundering to his father. Before leaving, my father said again: “Arthur, I am proud of you!” Arthur was very moved, but he never thought that it was this sentence that made him go to prison.
In July 2003, Arthur went to do morning exercises as usual, but was suddenly arrested by the police.
It turned out that after Arthur’s father met Arthur, he was very excited and couldn’t help telling his wife about it, and showed off that Arthur could make realistic counterfeit money. Driven by vanity, his wife told a couple of good friends. Unexpectedly, this couple of good friends happened to encounter fraud, and the means of fraud were actually not clever. The scammer sent a letter to the couple, stating that there is a rich man in Africa who is fleeing and his assets have been frozen. If they can prepare a sum of money as a handling fee, they will fly to South Africa to go through the formalities with the lawyer. You can get a reward of 1.02 million US dollars.
The couple actually believed that this was true, but they couldn’t pay the handling fee and didn’t have the money to fly to South Africa, but they didn’t want to miss the huge sum of money, so they found Arthur’s father and hoped that Arthur would print some counterfeit money to them. They promised to give half of the money to Arthur’s father after they were paid. Arthur’s father felt that the time was coming, so he agreed. He quickly took out the counterfeit bills that Arthur gave him: “Look, this is almost the same as real money. No one will find out when you go to the shopping mall to buy things. If you don’t believe it, you try first.”
After hearing this, the couple happily went there, but they didn’t know that when Arthur and Aimeber spent counterfeit banknotes, they had to choose not only the staff, but also plan the escape route in advance. As a result, the couple was arrested by the police in the shopping mall. The police followed the vine and arrested Arthur and Amber. Arthur was sentenced to 10 years in prison, and Amber was also punished. When Arthur calmly broke up with her, she wept and nodded docilely as before.
After 10 years in prison, Arthur was not lonely. In prison, he discovered that he also had an amazing talent for painting, so he concentrated on learning to paint. In August 2013, when Arthur was released after serving his sentence, he immediately started a painting exhibition and sold many works at once. He used the money to do the clothing business, and from then on, while painting and doing business, he did a great job. He also donated most of the money he earned from selling paintings and clothing business to some charities. Arthur’s business grew bigger and bigger, and his reputation grew. In just a few years, he has become a famous painter, entrepreneur and philanthropist in the United States. His life experience is called “legendary” by many people.
In November 2019, Arthur founded a clothing brand called “Da Vinci”. He smiled and said, thinking of the absurd things he had done before, he felt that now is the real life, but sometimes it is inevitable to miss the mysterious man Da Vinci who taught him to make counterfeit money in the first place. He hoped that Da Vinci could be friends with him again after seeing this brand.
