America

Donald Trump

Elon Musk

Fake United States dollars are appearing in greater numbers across North America in recent weeks, from Texas to Hawaii to Canada.
On May 8, a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.valleycentral.com/news/local-news/brownsville-man-accused-of-manufacturing-counterfeit-money/" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">report</a>&nbsp;revealed&nbsp;that police in Brownsville, Texas, have arrested a man accused of manufacturing counterfeit dollar bills.
The 45-year-old was charged with seven counts of forgery following numerous police reports from local businesses, including grocery stores, hotels, gas stations and restaurants complaining about people paying with counterfeit bills. 
However, these fake banknotes appear not limited to just one area and are circulating further afield.
Earlier in May, it was <a href="https://www.wkbn.com/news/local-news/boardman-news/counterfeit-money-used-to-enter-local-baseball-park/" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">reported</a> that counterfeit money was used to enter a baseball field in Ohio. 
Dodgy dollars have even been found as far away as Hawaii, with police reporting that people are taking low-denomination U.S. dollar bills and turning them into $100 bills.
The counterfeiters were reportedly taking $1 bills, bleaching the ink off, and printing over the original currency to make it look like $100, <a href="https://www.khon2.com/local-news/police-warn-of-people-scrubbing-1-bills-turning-them-into-100/" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">said</a> local police. 
They will then use the fake note to purchase something small to get genuine currency in return for change. 
Earlier this year, fake $100 bills were <a href="https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/mobile/counterfeit-100-bills-circulating-in-hawkesbury-ont-opp-warns-1.6807795?cache=jhiggtiw?clipId=1930113" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">reported</a> circulating in Ontario, Canada. Meanwhile, on May 12, police in Charlottetown, Canada, warned that counterfeit American $100 bills used as movie props were being passed at local businesses. 
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 <img src="https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2024-05/0a1e6667-d315-4cd0-a52a-c4ea5e325f3b.jpg" alt="" title="">
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 Source: <a href="https://twitter.com/chtownpolice/status/1789437678695407693" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">Charlottetown Police</a>
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It also comes amid the circulation of a widely <a href="https://twitter.com/RpsAgainstTrump/status/1789837933664411928" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">shared</a> TikTok video of a former Donald Trump staffer showing him boasting that he hands out “fake Hollywood money” to homeless people. 
The U.S. Secret Service <a href="https://www.secretservice.gov/annual-reports/fy-2023-annual-report#Investigative-Operations" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">reported</a> that they seized nearly $22 million in counterfeit cash in 2023, while ABC <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/counterfeiting-modern-age/story?id=108005573" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">reported</a>&nbsp;in March that “the crime of counterfeiting is making a comeback.”
Related: <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/identity-fake-cryptocurrency">How to identify fake cryptocurrency</a>
However, fake fiat is not a problem limited to North America.
On May 12, Insider Politic <a href="https://twitter.com/insider_politic/status/1789678657759232101" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">reported</a> on X that a resident of Barcelona, Spain, was arrested for producing counterfeit 20 and 50-euro banknotes in her apartment. In April, German investigators <a href="https://apnews.com/article/germany-counterfeit-dollar-bills-seized-ac6cae5688e86a65ee7a91b33b660782" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">reported</a> the seizure of counterfeit dollar bills with a face value of over $103 million. 
<h2 data-ct-non-breakable="true" id="another-blow-to-fiat">Another blow to fiat?</h2>
The latest flurry of fake fiat reports is another blow to traditional paper currencies, which have been under the macroeconomic microscope over the past year or so. 
Many commentators, particularly in the crypto community, have been critical of central bank policy, which involves <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/printing-money-great-business-new-zealand-central-bank"></a><a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/printing-money-great-business-new-zealand-central-bank">printing money and inflating the circulating supply</a>.
Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk even <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1789394404446282213" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">compared</a> the U.S. central bank to the popular board game Monopoly on X on May 12 for its similarities in manufacturing money and having a bank that can never go broke. 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
 How the Federal Reserve works <a href="https://t.co/3rRhbBfcJe">pic.twitter.com/3rRhbBfcJe</a>— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1789394404446282213?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 11, 2024</a>
</blockquote> 
On the other hand, crypto assets such as Bitcoin (<a href="https://cointelegraph.com/bitcoin-price">BTC</a>) are extremely difficult to counterfeit or double-spend due to the immutable nature of the blockchain on which it resides and the network’s security through its proof-of-work consensus mechanism.&nbsp;
However, that hasn’t stopped other types of scams, such as&nbsp;<a href="https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/120470/is-it-real-btc-or-fake" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">attempted</a>&nbsp;sales of testnet BTC, which is supposed to be worthless, to dupe users into thinking they’re receiving the genuine article. 
Other scams include spurious tokens with the same or similar tickers being peddled as tokens for a genuine project, such as a fake Ethena Labs token, which was <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/ethena-labs-exploited-290k-binance-launchpool">exploited for $290,000</a> on the Binance launch pool in March.
Magazine: <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/magazine/unstable-coins-de-pegging-bank-runs-other-risks-2023/">Unstablecoins: Depegging, bank runs and other risks loom</a>

Reports of ‘bleached’ counterfeit bills crop up across North America

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