16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Genuine Tragedy of a Counterfeiter, August 5, 2009
It is rather amazing that our day-to-day economy is founded on rectangles of printed paper, worthless in themselves, but to which we all communally assign a high value. The difference between the rectangles' actual value and their symbolic value is what counterfeiters exploit, and the counterfeiter's work was considered so dangerous to society that it used to be a capital crime. It is still a danger, and the object of the Federal Reserve Bank is to print dollar bills that cannot be copied, while the object of the counterfeiters is to copy them. This cat-and-mouse game has best been played recently by counterfeiter Art Williams, who successfully conquered the redesigned $100 bill, issued to thwart photocopiers in 1996. Successfully, for a while at least. Williams's story is told in _The Art of Making Money: The Story of a Master Counterfeiter_ (Gotham Books) by Jason Kersten. Kersten has had plenty of interviews with Williams, and with many of his connections; he did not get cooperation from the Secret Service, which preferred to keep things secret. The Secret Service was formed in 1865 to combat counterfeiters, who were threatening the foundation of the US economy. Only later did it get the job it is better known for, protecting the president. So while there are some details about the work of the counterfeiter and his detection and prosecution, most of the book plays as a biography of a talented, obsessed, and tragic figure.
Williams had an upbringing fit for a career criminal, including a chaotic home and gang membership. A counterfeiting expert took him under his wing, explaining how to use the arc-light burner, make plates, mix inks, obtain paper, and the other matters of hardware, as well as common-sense tips on how to unload the money and keep from getting caught.m Counterfeiters risk capture if they just print money and spend it. It is far safer to print money and sell it for, say, thirty cents on the dollar, to distant contacts who ideally would use it for drug payoffs or for international shipments. It was a lot to learn, and Williams was a gifted student. When Chicago became too hot for safety, he headed to Texas where he was picked up for robbery, and when he got out of prison, the 1996 New Note was in circulation. He took the note as his personal challenge. Among his innovations was experimenting with digital duplication, producing a hybrid bill that used both offset and digital production. Kersten details the bill's security features, and how Williams worked hard to overcome each one. The color-shifting ink, for instance, could be mimicked with paint used on those automobiles that have a different color depending on the angle you are looking at them, and the paint could be applied with a rubber stamp. Even experts did not spot the fakes, and Williams began the labor-intensive full-scale production. Everyone wanted in, because the bills were so good. Williams got rich from the production, and he and friends and family went on sprees. The object in spending a counterfeit $100 bill is not to get $100 worth of goods; it is to get a clerk to take your fake money for a $20 item and give you $80 change in good money. His team would hit a mall, spend the money at different stores, and come away with goods they didn't need, so they took pains to buy things the poor could use and then donated the goods to the Salvation Army. The financial gain from counterfeiting seems to have been less of a motivation than the technical challenges of making passable bills, but Williams was able to enjoy the freedom and travel that resulted.
The travel brought him to the Alaskan doorstep of his estranged father who appreciated Williams's line of work and wanted to get in it, at which point the whole tale descends into fear and chaos and capture. It is ironic that Williams could make money but that no amount of money, real or fake, could bring back the family ties he craved. His wife contemplated at one point, "He was good at anything he set his mind to. If he put half the energy into just a job, he'd probably make good money anyway." This account of Williams life includes much about his technical expertise and success, and might even engender some admiration for his cleverness and tenacity, but it is a simple tragedy of self-imposed ruin. Williams might get out of prison in a few years, and the dollar bills might have holographic imagery by that time; my guess is he won't be able to keep from trying to make copies.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Well written account of a talented, yet troubled man's life story., August 2, 2009
Jason Kersten does a marvelous job of telling the true story of how Art Williams became one of the most successful conterfeiters in modern times. The narrative flows beautifully to bring readers into the difficult and troubled life of Art as he was growing up and how he got into conterfeiting. There's no sense of hyperbole nor of minimizing Art's strengths and/or his flaws. Art's story itself also is inherently compelling because of his great humanity and how his attempt to connect with his estranged father led to his discovery and apprehension by the secret service. I found this book to be one of the most memorable and high-quality books that I have ever read.
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