Spending your hard earned cash will never be the same – and perhaps never be as secure. The US Treasury’s Bureau of Engraving and Printing will next month unroll new $5 bills and is working to revamp $100 bills in the coming months. The government is pushing hard to counteract some $118.1 million in counterfeit U.S. currency that was reported in 2006, an increase of almost 4% from 2005, largely due to advanced digital counterfeiting.
Those features are found in currently in redesigned $10, $20 and $50 bills and include color-shifting ink, a secure watermark and the security thread a small strip embedded in the paper. The new bills use microprinting that publishes words so small they are hard to replicate.
Initially the $5 bill was not going to be redesigned, experts said but that decision was reversed once counterfeiters started bleaching $5 bills and printing fake $100 bills over the bleached paper; certain security features were in the same location on both bills.
The $100 bill is next in line for a face-lift. The Associated Press is reporting that a new security thread has been approved for the $100 bill. The new look is part of an effort to thwart counterfeiters who are armed with ever-more sophisticated computers, scanners and color copiers. The C-note, with features the likeness of Benjamin Franklin, is the most frequent target of counterfeiters operating outside the United States, the AP said. The new security thread is used on the Swedish 1,000 kroner note and has been selected by the government of Mexico for some higher denomination notes. The $100 bill represents more than 70% of the $776 billion in currency in circulation and is the favorite of counterfeiters, observers said.
Recently federal authorities nabbed a couple who put tried to pass off at least $60,000 of fake cash at Caesars Palace in July. And the couple had way more money than that in reserve. According to the indictment, Chen Liu and Min Liu had more than $400 counterfeit $100 bills when they visited Caesars Palace between July 26 and July 31. The AP says to stay ahead of the counterfeiters, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing plans to redesign U.S. currency every seven years to 10 years. That is a far cry from the practice for most of the 20th century – from 1929 to the 1990s – when the currency stayed the same without any major changes.
The $1 bill, which accounts for 45% of the notes printed each year, will not be redesigned. Lawmakers were concerned about the cost to business if low-end vending machines that only take coins and $1 bills had to be upgraded, the AP reported.
