Four Florida teens face federal counterfeiting charges for allegedly making phony money on a home co

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**Frazzled**

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/05/teens-charged-with-making-counterfeit-money-and-spending-it-in-school-cafeteria/1

Teens charged with making counterfeit money and spending it in school cafeteria
07:30 AMPrint Share
By Douglas Stanglin, USA TODAY
6 Comments

Recommend
Four Florida teens face federal counterfeiting charges for allegedly making phony money on a home computer and spending it in the high school cafeteria, WPBF TV reports.

The three boys, ages 14 to 16, and a 15 -year-old girl are freshmen at Jensen Beach high school in Stuart Fla.

Detectives say cafeteria workers were given counterfeit detector pens after some bum money showed up last month.

When more began turning up, detectives tracked it back to a 15-year-old boy who had allegedly been selling it at a discount and even giving it away. Police said they discovered sheets of counterfeit cash in his room, the TV station reports.

WPBF says parents told police they had bought their son the yellowish resume paper when he said he needed it for a school project.

Detectives said the boy told friends he did it because it "sounded kind of cool at the time," WPBF reports.

**filbert**

I'm more concerned that the cafeteria staff seemed unable to tell the difference between a genuine note and something off a home printer. Given that the staff had to be issued with detector pens suggests that they managed to pass some duff notes off. Surely just the texture alone would be enough? Its not like these kids are master criminals.

**Frazzled**

1. Unless they roughed it (you know take a piece of normal paper, crinkle it and rub it until its like cloth or worn money.

2. Their staff did not grow up with US$ as their national currency.

**ShivanAngel**

or it could be like me with 3.

Havent actually touched paper money in over 6 months...

Debit cards are taken everywhere now.. I honestly dont remember the last time I had cash in my wallet.

on an on topic note...

Punish the hell outa the kids at a federal level. They are 15 years old, they should know what they did was wrong and against the law.

**Melissia**

Detector pens don't work, so what's the point in that?

http://www.randi.org/jr/070105quality.html#7

**halonachos**

Melissia wrote:Detector pens don't work, so what's the point in that?

I have a personal experience that would beg to differ.

If the pen is used on an actual dollar it turns a light brown and fades away, if its used on paper it turns black, and I mean sharpie black. It also does the same to counterfeit dollar bills, as long as they use something with starch in them.

**Melissia**

halonachos wrote:I have a personal experience that would beg to differ.

So? Your personal experience is irrelevant because THE GODDAMNED THING DOES NOT WORK.

All it does is check for starch. Any good counterfeiter isn't gonna use starched paper, and this pen means that REAL dollars which have come into contact with starch are believed to be fake. It's completely and utterly useless.

**Kilkrazy**

You would be surprised how nice looking a £20 can be printed on a good laser printer.

Like Frazzled said, you have to rough up the paper a bit.

It's good enough to pass a cursory inspection.

**halonachos**

Melissia wrote:
halonachos wrote:I have a personal experience that would beg to differ.
So? Your personal experience is irrelevant because THE GODDAMNED THING DOES NOT WORK.

All it does is check for starch. Any good counterfeiter isn't gonna use starched paper, and this pen means that REAL dollars which have come into contact with starch are believed to be fake.

Its kind of hard to come into contact with starch, especially since the starch comes from the paper's natural quality. I mean if you took a real dollar and made it breed with a tree then maybe its children would have starch in them(I would have to make a punnett's square for the basic chances).

Its not like I can go to a store and say that I want some starch and buy a bottle of the stuff, its a basic compound and unless the counterfeiter is doing gravimetric distillation or something he's most likely not going to have starch on his money.

But no, the pen worked in my case simply due to the fact that while some counterfeiters are good not all countereiters are good.

**Melissia**

halonachos wrote:Its kind of hard to come into contact with starch

Sure it is, all I have to do is spray a dollar bill with starch and hey, it's now a counterfeit bill to these retards using this pen! Except that it isn't, it's just that the pen is stupid and doesn't work.

The Secret Service in the United States, whose job it is to track down counterfeit bills, takes the same position that I do. They are the experts on this I should note. They do more harm than good, in fact, because employers give these pens to their employees instead of REAL training.`

**Frazzled**

Melissia wrote:
halonachos wrote:Its kind of hard to come into contact with starch
Sure it is, all I have to do is spray a dollar bill with starch and hey, it's now a counterfeit bill to these retards using this pen! Except that it isn't, it's just that the pen is stupid and doesn't work.

The Secret Service in the United States, whose job it is to track down counterfeit bills, takes the same position that I do. They are the experts on this I should note. They do more harm than good, in fact, because employers give these pens to their employees instead of REAL training.`

Or they do both. I'm not sure what your issue is, especially as it may have worked in this instance.

**ChrisWWII**

Frazzled wrote:

Or they do both. I'm not sure what your issue is, especially as it may have worked in this instance.

I'm willing to bet that they only worked because the kids were idiots.

I'm just slightly...amused/worried I suppose is the best word by the reasoning behind this act, "it sounded kinda cool at the time." Am I the only one who finds himself doing a mulitple faceplam at that?

**Ahtman**

I've also seen the pen do its thing as well so I'm not sure what the issue is there. I've seen a $5 bill turned into a very convincing $50 bill with bleaching and printing.

**frgsinwntr**

spraying the bills with hair spray cancels out the pens effect I hear....

**Matrim**

Melissia wrote:
halonachos wrote:I have a personal experience that would beg to differ.
So? Your personal experience is irrelevant because THE GODDAMNED THING DOES NOT WORK.

All it does is check for starch. Any good counterfeiter isn't gonna use starched paper, and this pen means that REAL dollars which have come into contact with starch are believed to be fake. It's completely and utterly useless.

starch is hardly something you 'accidentally' rub onto money.

i dont rub my freshly peeled potatoes in starch, or put them under rice when i rinse it with hot water. or spray it in starch for that matter.
I think your going a bit over the top in your reaction.

**halonachos**

Melissia wrote:
halonachos wrote:Its kind of hard to come into contact with starch
Sure it is, all I have to do is spray a dollar bill with starch and hey, it's now a counterfeit bill to these retards using this pen! Except that it isn't, it's just that the pen is stupid and doesn't work.

The Secret Service in the United States, whose job it is to track down counterfeit bills, takes the same position that I do. They are the experts on this I should note. They do more harm than good, in fact, because employers give these pens to their employees instead of REAL training.`

Some stores have a high turnover rate, in those stores training is relatively wasted so they actually use an electronic machine to look at them at the registers. We don't get too many counterfeit bills where I work, but then again we don't get robbed or have things stolen as much as the other stores.