Number one counterfeiter

 　　He was born in a remote town on the border and never received a higher education. However, he produced super counterfeit banknotes in a simple warehouse by himself, and became the biggest counterfeit banknote in history.

　　From an ordinary worker to a super criminal who made 250 million US dollars, and then miraculously escaped and became an anti-counterfeit banknote identification expert, his three completely different identities show his ups and downs in life, and it has also become a legend in the history of counterfeit banknote crimes.

　　He is the largest counterfeit money dealer in history, known as the "God of Counterfeit Money" Frank Brasa.

　　In 1976, Frank Brasa

　　was born in a remote small city in Quebec, Canada. As an adult, in order to make money, he began to take risks. One evening, Frank was targeted by street gangsters after he concluded a marijuana deal. He desperately fled in the alley, but the footsteps behind him kept chasing him, and finally he had to hide in a smelly trash can to escape. Looking at the pitiful few dollars in his hand, he felt extremely sour.

　　Suddenly, Frank had a flash of inspiration, why don't I print my own money?

　　First of all, it is necessary to decide what currency to imitate. Of course, his first thought was the most familiar Canadian dollar, but after some thinking, Frank decided to imitate the US dollar, which has the widest circulation and is the easiest to ship.

　　After repeatedly comparing the denominations of US dollar bills, he finally selected 20 US dollars as the object of imitation. Different from other denominations, the denomination of $20 is neither too big nor too small. It is frequently used in daily transactions, has a large circulation, and is not too noticeable, which perfectly fits Frank's needs.

　　Making counterfeit money is far less easy than imitating other printed matter. No matter how high-precision the printing machine is, it cannot eliminate the image blur caused by moiré, making the counterfeit banknotes look "fake at a glance". Frank's ideal is to make super counterfeit banknotes with various details close to real banknotes.

　　Frank decided to learn the art of making money from scratch. He searched through the Internet and found a large number of US dollar bill production materials and anti-counterfeiting standards on the official website of the US Secret Service. Using these official sources, Frank has a general understanding of the basic process of making banknotes.

　　Then, Frank began to deduce the equipment and materials needed to make banknotes from the official anti-counterfeiting key points.

　　The official $20 bill uses a special paper with 75% cotton mixed with 25% linen, which feels special to the touch and has a slightly raised surface after printing. Color-changing ink is used to print the number 20 in the lower right corner of the banknote, which shows a gradient effect from green to copper under different lights. There is also a security thread emblazoned with USA Twenty on the left side of the bill, which glows green when exposed to ultraviolet light. In addition to these two obvious anti-counterfeiting points, if you hold the banknote against the light, the watermark of President Jackson will appear on the right side of the real banknote. The watermark is visible from both sides of the banknote.

　　There are still some unpublished anti-counterfeiting features in the hands of the authorities, but Frank doesn't care about these details, because he knows that as long as he can make counterfeit banknotes that pass the above verification, it is enough to deceive the eyes of ordinary people. 　　In 2007, Frank officially started his banknote making journey

　　.

He bought a warehouse as a production base, ready to work hard.

　　But he had trouble buying a gravure printing machine. Manufacturers of professional gravure printing machines are strictly controlled by the government, and unless there are legitimate reasons and official approval documents, it is impossible to buy such equipment. Just when Frank was troubled by this, an accidental discovery turned things around.

　　Before a dinner party, Frank walked into a street bookstore and waited for his friends to get off work. He casually flipped through a book at hand, and was suddenly surprised by the bumpy texture in his hand. How could ordinary offset-printed books have such a bumpy feeling? ?

　　He quickly bought the book and went to ask a friend who worked in a publishing house for advice.

　　"It's not surprising. As long as the ink is adjusted, the most common offset printing machine can do it." The friend's answer seemed to give Frank a shot in the arm. A four-color Heidelberg offset printing machine was placed on the equipment website.

　　Frank also ordered a series of equipment such as industrial paper cutters, plate-making machines, and Ricoh inkjet printers, and even obtained an important material for anti-counterfeiting—color-changing ink—through the black market. He kept experimenting with various methods all night long in the small warehouse, and in just a few months, he solved the problem of imitation of anti-counterfeiting identification points such as watermarks, anti-counterfeiting fibers, ultraviolet strips, and serial numbers.

　　But Frank has never been able to solve the paper problem used by counterfeit banknotes. Official dollar paper is produced by a paper company exclusively for the government and is not sold publicly at all.

　　Frank found out the banknotes of various countries and compared them one by one. He was pleasantly surprised to find that the printing methods of many countries are very similar, and the paper used is also similar. This discovery inspired him that this special printing paper might be found in other countries.

　　One day in January 2009, a young employee of a paper company in Switzerland received an order from a large investment company. The other party stated that the paper for this order will be used to issue corporate bonds, and special paper materials made of cotton and linen are required for anti-counterfeiting, and security threads must be sewn on the paper.

　　The paper problem that had been bothering Frank was easily solved in this way. He decided to strike while the iron was hot to solve the watermark problem. After some thought, he set his sights on a German company that produced drums, and once again used the name of his shell company to pretentiously ask the other party to customize a commemorative drum with Jackson's head engraved on it. Souvenirs are not considered sensitive items, and the company gladly accepted the order.

　　Soon the samples of the commemorative drum were sent to Frank, who simply processed the drum into a watermark master and handed it over to the paper company, and added the requirement to put a watermark on this batch of paper. After this operation, the batch of paper ordered by Frank is no different from the raw materials of real U.S. dollar bills in terms of composition, watermark, security thread, etc.

　　After the manufacturing is completed, the paper factory will send the goods to the address provided by Frank according to the previous process. When filling out the customs declaration form, Frank decided to take a risk and filled in "blank paper" in the column of the name of the goods. Frank won the bet, and he was lucky enough to receive the goods.

　　Frank stroked the fine-textured, well-crafted paper in his hand, immediately turned on all the machines, and started producing his super dollars in full swing.

　　After the first batch of super counterfeit banknotes were produced, Frank took these 20-dollar counterfeit banknotes and swaggered in and out of various street shops and underground black markets, conducting frequent transactions. Whether it is experienced shopkeepers or gang members who are used to counterfeiting banknotes, no one can see the flaws in these money.

　　In order to ensure the authenticity of counterfeit banknotes, Frank even found a few blind traders to trade. The other party carefully rubbed the banknote in his hand, and quickly nodded to accept it. The sense of touch of blind people is much more sensitive than that of ordinary people. If they can't detect the problem, it proves that their super counterfeit banknotes can fool most people.

　　It's time to mass-produce with confidence. In just 5 months, in the simple warehouse, Frank made a full imitation of super dollars with a face value of up to 250 million US dollars. These counterfeit banknotes with a face value of 20 US dollars piled up into a hill.

　　In order to enjoy the dividends brought by these counterfeit banknotes with peace of mind, the cautious Frank set two principles for himself: one is not to spend the counterfeit banknotes in his own hands, and the other is not to use the counterfeit banknotes directly around the place of origin.

　　So, through his network, he quietly let out the wind in the United States, claiming that he could buy a counterfeit $100 bill for only $30.

　　This well-made ultra-counterfeit currency quickly spread its reputation on the black market. Since March 2010, people have been hearing about it and buying counterfeit banknotes from Frank. This counterfeit 20-dollar note first appeared in Michigan on the border between the United States and Canada. In just a few months, it spread like a virus. California, Florida, Las Vegas and all over the United States It has appeared.

　　With the spread of batches of super counterfeit banknotes, civil complaints arose, which quickly attracted the attention of the US Secret Service. But no matter how they investigated, they couldn't find any trace of the person behind the scenes.

　　Batches of counterfeit banknotes were shipped out, and sums of genuine banknotes were earned back. Just as Frank was complacent about his cleverness, an accidental negligence completely exposed him to the sight of the police.

　　In April 2012, a gang group placed a large order of $1 million to Frank. In order to win over this big client, Frank decided to go to the appointment in person. Taking advantage of his drunkenness, he proudly showed off the counterfeit banknotes he made and boasted that his technology was absolutely unique.

　　In the early morning of May 23, Frank was awakened by someone in his sleep. When he opened his eyes, he saw that the room was full of heavily armed Canadian Mounted Police. It turned out that the police undercover in the gang caught Frank as a big fish by mistake. After the transaction was over, a secret report was quickly sent back to the Canadian police station, and many eyes in the dark quickly locked on to Frank. 　　On the day of his arrest

, the police found $944,000 in counterfeit banknotes in his home. These counterfeit banknotes alone were enough to put Frank in prison for 60 years.

　　In December 2013, a year and a half after Frank's arrest, the case officially began. Facing felony charges and a long prison sentence, at the last moment of the court session, he offered to hand over all the counterfeit US$200 million banknotes he printed and all the banknote-making equipment, on the condition that he would not be prosecuted and would not be extradited to the United States for trial.

　　After some lengthy deliberations, the court finally agreed to his terms.

　　In this way, Frank Brasa signed a plea agreement with the court, and the perpetrator who falsified more than 200 million U.S. dollars was only sentenced to 1 month in prison and a fine of 1,500 Canadian dollars.

　　After a month of imprisonment, Frank accepted the recruitment of the Canadian government and became an expert in anti-counterfeit banknote identification. He helped the police crack down on many major counterfeit banknote cases and caught many cunning counterfeiters.

　　To this day, the legendary experience of this super counterfeit maker is still talked about. At the 2021 Saint Denis Film Festival, a virtual reality film called "Destiny" is based on Frank Brasa's real experience. The film was co-produced by Frank himself, and tells about his legendary life of ups and downs from an ordinary worker to a "master" of counterfeit banknotes, and then to an expert in counterfeit banknote identification.