It would appear that it’s not just adults that crave money, as over the weekend four elementary school students were caught trying to spend counterfeit cash.
But this wasn’t some innocent and childish mistake, with the kids turning up at a store with some badly photocopied notes. No, the youngsters in question had used a computer and scanner in an attempt to achieve passable forgeries. And rather than using the lower denomination 1,000 yen (5 pound) notes, they went for the biggest (10,000 yen) bills.
Unfortunately it seems their computer skills weren’t quite up to scratch, as whilst trying to use one of the forgeries in a stationary store, an employee spotted the bogus bill and alerted the police.
Although they are too young to face prosecution, the police have reported the kids to a child consultation centre. A place where they may soon be joined by more classmates, as it turns out that before being caught, the four forgers had passed out some of the bills to their friends
Toni says
U.S. home printers’ software prevent counterfitting by not allowing images of bills to be printed, and I think the same goes for scanners (image of bills can’t be scanned). I’m surprised that Japanese printers don’t have that type of feature.
wulong says
I wonder how printers/scanners know it’s a bill being scanned/printed…
Makito says
Haha! that’s priceless…
although, back in my highschool days we performed a little experiment: We busted into the computer lab, and pressed off a couple $5, $10, and a $50 bill. After 2 hours of photo match and editing we had some very impressive bills. (Double sided, crinkled properly) We had no intention to use them but rather inconspicously have one person drop them in a common area while the rest of us sat back and watched how different people reacted to “finding” money on the ground.
Most interesting enough, students tended to be more honest than our said teachers. One teacher actually walked past the bill, stoped, thought about it, walked backwards, and “stepped” on the bill covering it completely, completed a conversation with another teacher then until they thought no one was looking to picked it up.
Scanners and printers probably have a simple algorithm for detecting specific patterns at known positions – like the serial numbers and the dollar value are always in the same place. On other news, certain versions of Adobe Photoshop will not allow you to edit Euros, though a patch is avilable I’ve heard.
Nacente says
In Euro case, there a lot of “brilliant parts” when exposed to light. And scanner light is really strong, they may be able to detect it.