How a High School Dropout Turned Phone Book Pages Into $10 Million

In 1996, the U.S. Treasury released a brand-new $100 bill — the most secure banknote America had ever made. Watermark. Security thread. Color-shifting ink. Microprinting. It was supposed to stop counterfeiters for good.

Art Williams Jr. — a kid from the Chicago projects who dropped out of school and learned the trade from a counterfeiter called “DaVinci” — saw it as a dare.

He cracked it with a phone book, a pencil sketch of Ben Franklin on tissue paper, metallic car paint and a rubber stamp from a copy shop. The Secret Service’s own lab rated his work an eight or nine out of ten. By his own estimate, he printed around $10 million.

So how did one of the best counterfeiters in America end up caught with crude fake bills in a shopping mall in Anchorage, Alaska? Why did he say it was love that brought him down? And how did his family end up with three generations of Williams men in prison for counterfeit money?

This is the story of the man who beat the “uncounterfeitable” $100 bill — and what it cost him.

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CHAPTERS

0:00 – Cold Open
1:54 – The Apprentice
5:33 – The New Note
10:46 – Because of Love
15:47 – The Recipe

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SOURCES & FURTHER READING

NPR (23.07.2005) — Counterfeiter made up to $10 million in funny money: https://www.npr.org/2005/07/23/4768217/counterfeiter-made-up-to-10-million-in-funny-money
Rolling Stone — The Last Counterfeiter (excerpt, Jason Kersten): https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/last-counterfeiter-excerpt-art-williams-1234990843/
Gizmodo (13.08.2014) — The rise and fall of America’s greatest convicted counterfeiter: https://gizmodo.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-americas-greatest-convicted-counte-1619717823
WBEZ Chicago (17.06.2023) — The Bridgeport counterfeiter turned painter: https://www.wbez.org/culture-the-arts/2023/06/17/bridgeport-counterfeiter-painter-arthur-j-williams
U.S. Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit — United States v. Williams (2004): https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/8450579/united-states-v-williams/
U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of Illinois (2009) — Arthur J. Williams III charged: https://www.justice.gov/archive/usao/iln/chicago/2009/pr0701_01.pdf
NBC LX — How a master counterfeiter went from prison to the Hollywood art scene: https://lx.com/money/how-a-master-counterfeiter-went-from-prison-to-the-hollywood-art-scene/36434
Wikipedia — Arthur J. Williams Jr.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_J._Williams_Jr.

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