Unless they’ve changed them, the laws regarding photographing/electronic duplicating of US currency are pretty clear. Intent does not matter, it is illegal (I believe unless you magnify the image at least 150%). Intentionally trying *to pass *a fake bill is a worse crime, but if you’ve ever photocopied and/or printed a 1:1 image of US currency then you’ve broken the law. The few times I’ve done it for a goof I always make sure to shred it soon after.
I would most definitely NOT do it for a kid’s birthday party!!
Once I couldn’t even print an article that had a stock picture of some 20 euro notes in it. The printer got to the image, canceled the entire job, and printed out a URL I could visit to learn what an awful person I am.
In about 2002, I had a student who worked at an office supply store. Great kid, was about to graduate, had a generous scholarship lined up. Had just turned 18, which became relevant.
Anyway, he copied some 20s that he then passed in the lunch line. Apparently, he thought it was a “prank”, not a crime, if he only used them at school. He was arrested, at school, charged with counterfeiting, and maybe passing known forgeries?, lost his scholarship, thousands in fines, a huge mess. All over $40 or $60 in fake 20s that he passed in the lunch line.
I don’t have a link but I remember reading about a college kid (this has to be like 30 years ago) who merely Xeroxed one dollar bills after finding that a college campus bill-reader vending machine would accept them. Of course the vending company reported it and he was caught. As I remember he was convicted of counterfeiting, but got a reduced sentence (just probation I think) because:
[ol]
[li]He only copied one dollar bills.[/li][li]Since they were B&W and blank on one side they would not have fooled a real person, just a machine.[/li][/ol]
But he was still convicted of counterfeiting and passing them, which he essentially did do. I think the story was deliberately down-played to give the electronic bill-reader makers time to update their hardware…
