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Counterfeit Prevention Measures in World Currency Today

By: Devon Valenta

Over the past few decades, the international phenomenon of counterfeiting of modern currency has slowly acquired such alarming proportions that it has turned into a serious problem for Governments the world over. In order to control this international criminal activity and protect the currencies of their respective countries, Governments around the world have been effecting changes in their currency notes from time to time.

With technology being cheap and computer equipments available at dirt prices it's becoming easier for the counterfeiters to duplicate the designs and images of modern currency. The threat of counterfeiting is a serious crime and governments the world over have taken severe steps to curb it. We will discuss a few of the methods that have been deployed against the counterfeiters worldwide.

One such step taken by the US Government during the 1980s, was to issue bills of 20, 50 and 100-dollar denominations along with a security strip that was located on them from their top to bottom. These bills had their denominations clearly written on this security strip that was made of fluorescent plastic. It was quite easy to read the printed matter on this strip by holding the bills under a fluorescent light bulb. Despite this fact, however, the clearly written denominations turned out to be a hindrance for the counterfeiters in their efforts to 'upgrade' bills of lower denominations to those of higher denominations, something that they did by 'washing' the ink from the paper. On this paper, they reprinted the graphics of the bill with the help of the dye sub or laser printers.

Another method that the United States government has implemented is watermarking. The latest bills that have been issued by the treasury have images embedded in the currency’s paper. You can view this watermarked image by holding up the bill to a light source. The image in the watermark should match the image of the president on the bill. The $100 bill, for example, features the likeness of Benjamin Franklin in both the standard image and the watermark.

It must be mentioned here that the counterfeit currency of some denominations is, at times, produced with those images that are actually meant for the bills of some other denominations. For instance, some counterfeit US currency in circulation internationally has $5-bills bearing the images that are actually meant for the $100-bill. Though such counterfeit bills have a very genuine look and feel, they can still be identified quite easily because it is not possible to bleach out the watermark, as is the case with the surface images. So, when the counterfeit $5-bills are held up against a source of light, they show up the image of former US President Lincoln in the watermark which is the actual image that should appear on all the bills of this denomination.

Finally, one of the latest counterfeit prevention technologies that have been put into use is special inks that appear to be different colors at different angles. When viewed from the left, for example the color may appear to the eye to be a light green, but as the viewer shifts over to the right, the color changes to black. These color changing inks are very difficult to reproduce as they use a special compound that is very difficult for counterfeiters to manufacture.

These, then, are some of the latest security measures in practice in the United States to control the rising incidence of counterfeit US currency. However, this battle is far from over, as the counterfeiters keep on finding new and better ways to ensure the continuation of their illegal trade with the help of the latest technology. Keeping this in mind, we shall continue our research in this direction in order to keep you posted about the fresher challenges faced by the US Government in this battle and how they measure up to the efforts of the counterfeiters in ensuring the victory of the genuine US dollar.

Copyright 2006, Devon Valenta, All Rights Reserved. This article may be published on web sites or in newsletters provided this notice and the resource box is included without ammendment.

Article Source: http://www.article-voip.com

Devon Valenta runs the Fone Currency, web site that focuses on a range of resources about currency issues. For more details, go to: www.fonecurrency.com

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