Counterfeiters are increasingly using personal computers instead of traditional offset printing presses to ply their trade, and laws should be toughened to combat this digital threat, the US Secret Service says.
Dennis Lynch, special-agent-in-charge of the Secret Service Counterfeit Division, told a Congressional hearing Tuesday that computer-generated, ink-jet counterfeiting accounted for 19 percent of all currency seized in fiscal year 1997, an 805 percent increase from 1995.
For the first five months of 1998, ink-jet printers were used to make 43 percent of the fake currency seized domestically.
"When using the technology currently available these devices are capable of producing high-quality counterfeit currency," Lynch said.
He said that many computer counterfeiters are getting away with light sentences or probation due to federal sentencing guidelines. The maximum penalty for counterfeiting is 15 years in prison, but the guidelines offer much lighter penalties for counterfeiting in amounts less than $5,000.
On 12 March, Lynch asked the US Sentencing Commission to change the guidelines. Agency officials also are working with the computer industry to develop electronic markers that would let the service trace bogus bills to the printers who made them. Such coding already is part of color copiers.
Representative Michael Castle, Republican of Delaware and chairman of the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy, said modern counterfeiters may live and work right next door.
"The classic movie cliche of the ink-stained master engraver painstakingly touching up his counterfeit printing plates has now given way to amateurs, often suburban teenaged computer hackers, or drug-dealing urban street gangs," Castle said.
Even though the issuance of new $100 and $50 bill designs has made it harder for counterfeiters to fool merchants and banks, the criminals were able to reproduce fakes that often slipped past the general public, Lynch said.
Castle said sentencing guidelines for convicted counterfeiters must be changed to reflect the new methods they employ.
"Personal computer counterfeiting has become a 'print-to- order crime' and previous sentencing guidelines based on total amounts of counterfeit notes seized should not apply," Castle said.
Lynch noted that some $40 million worth of US counterfeit currency was seized domestically by law enforcement in fiscal year 1997. That number represents a tiny sliver of the $450 billion worth of genuine US currency circulating worldwide.
