# How do criminals launder marked bills? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 23, 2025, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-criminals-launder-marked-bills/1025978 "2025-12-23T13:53:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2025, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-criminals-launder-marked-bills/1025978/81 "2025-12-25T01:44:05Z")
Yeah, Robert Blevins is a novelist with no particular expertise, just one of hundred of self-styled Cooper experts who for the most part seem to have a fixation on the idea that Cooper survived his jump. It’s basically a conspiracy theory, grounded in the idea that anything said by the “mainstream” must be wrong. You can see from Blevins’ blog what his other interest is, which should tell you something: > Covering the people, facts, and events on D.B. Cooper and UFO lore since 2015. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2025, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-criminals-launder-marked-bills/1025978/82 "2025-12-25T01:57:34Z")
Since Cooper was an unidentifiable falling object that night I suppose Blevins could have shortened his tagline to just Covering the people, facts, and events on ~~D.B. Cooper and~~ UFO lore since 2015. 😁 ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2025, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-criminals-launder-marked-bills/1025978/83 "2025-12-25T02:31:36Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > Here’s a video from how crime works on ones That’s about laundering drug money, not marked/recorded ransom money. Mostly irrelevant to the OP. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2025, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-criminals-launder-marked-bills/1025978/84 "2025-12-25T02:54:39Z")
> [@Ynnad](#): > > Here’s an article about the D.B. Cooper serial numbers. Good find. So according that that, the search only lasted a few months and then banks, casinos and the Federal Reserve were no long searching for the bills. IOW, as long as he waited a bit then it was all good and he just had to be careful to not do things like buy a Caddy with a suitcase of 20s, then it wouldn’t have beena problem. > [@pkbites](#): > > But not with cash that’s been marked or recorded. That’s like putting a time bomb in your future. Eventually it’s going to blow up in your face. Except the problem is that someone has to be looking for the recorded bills. > [@Francis\_Vaughan](#): > > I assume bank protocols separate money flows, so tellers don’t just have a float. Rather money in and money out streams. So they could tie a note to a transaction and probably a customer sometime later. Back in college in the 80s, I briefly dated a teller and they didn’t do anything like money in and money out streams. When she was first working there, she had made a couple of mistakes and they had no idea where she had made the mistake. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2025, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-criminals-launder-marked-bills/1025978/85 "2025-12-25T04:17:09Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > Good find. So according that that, the search only lasted a few months and then banks, casinos and the Federal Reserve were no long searching for the bills. According to an author trying to sell books with a strange conspiracy theory, instead of the actual Lead FBI agent on the case, who said the exact opposite. If that paratrooper had been Cooper, he would have worn boots and better clothing. (and a rain jacket, wool sweater and walking shoes or boots would not have looked out of place in November in the PNW) In Search and rescue we found a dude dressed better than Cooper who was in the last stages of hypothermia. (well, they found him, I was just part of the team back at the park). The guy was wearing jeans, running shoes, a flannel shirt and a down vest, but had twisted his ankle, and was caught in a spring rain in NorCal- night time temps never got below 40. Cooper was wearing dress loafers, light socks and a business suit. It was wet, snowing and the temp was 20 degrees with nasty wind. He couldnt have survived. That is besides the OP, but does show that the “expert” author is totally wrong. > [@markn\_1](#): > > Yeah, Robert Blevins is a novelist with no particular expertise, just one of hundred of self-styled Cooper experts who for the most part seem to have a fixation on the idea that Cooper survived his jump. It’s basically a conspiracy theory, grounded in the idea that anything said by the “mainstream” must be wrong. You can see from Blevins’ blog what his other interest is, which should tell you something: Great point. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2025, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-criminals-launder-marked-bills/1025978/86 "2025-12-26T16:11:01Z")
> [@Ynnad](#): > > The serial number includes a letter that identifies the issuing federal reserve bank. If serial numbers were recorded when destroyed then allocating destroyed bills to a particular reserve bank would be easy with modern systems. Instead, the above cite states, “No sort is made of the Bank of issue.” Note that the “No sort is made of the Bank of issue” statement shows up in an accounting manual. I think what it means is simply that the overall volume of issued and circulating Federal Reserve notes is, on the balance sheet of the Federal Reserve system, booked as a liability of the Federal Reserve system as a whole rather than earmarked to a particular Federal Reserve Bank that printed a particular note. I don’t think that statement excludes that the serial number of a retired note is registered for purposes other than accounting. ---
**Author:** ![Ynnad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/4491bb/32.png) [@Ynnad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ynnad)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2025, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-criminals-launder-marked-bills/1025978/87 "2025-12-26T17:44:55Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > I don’t think that statement excludes that the serial number of a retired note is registered for purposes other than accounting. No it does not. But I cannot find any official cite that describes the recording of serial numbers prior to destruction. If they were recorded then why are they not used for accounting purposes? Keep in mind that we are talking about notes that are no longer fit for circulation. Automatically reading and recording serial numbers for new notes is not that far-fetched. But think about all the mutilated, marked up notes that would have to be pulled out and evaluated by hand when dealing with worn out notes. If anyone has a cite to a U.S. treasury or federal reserve document that describes the recording of serial numbers of all notes prior destruction I would love to see it. Of course there is probably some recording of some serial numbers when notes are sampled for statistical purposes. For example, when studies are made to determine how long notes last in circulation. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2025, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-criminals-launder-marked-bills/1025978/88 "2025-12-26T18:25:42Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > Except the problem is that someone has to be looking for the recorded bills. There’s a wide spectrum between “nobody is doing anything whatsoever to look for the bills” and “every bank in the region thoroughly checks every $20 bill coming in against the list of serial numbers”. It’s certainly logistically feasible for a bank to run manual spot checks of a few randomly selected incoming twenties against the list per day. And if you do that, and DB Cooper starts spending bills, then you can be sure that sooner or later, one of them will be flagged. And once you’re there, investigators have somewhere to start. They can focus their work on this region and intensify the search there, gradually narrowing down the range. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2025, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-criminals-launder-marked-bills/1025978/89 "2025-12-26T18:41:48Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > I’ve always been a bit fascinated by the DB Cooper case. You might like this podcast. He dives deep into a lot of ‘suspects’. > **[The Cooper Vortex | Darren Schaefer and Russell Colbert](https://thecoopervortex.podbean.com/)** > > Who is DB Cooper? A look into America's only unsolved skyjacking and the people who are trying to solve it. ---
**Author:** ![zimaane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a3d4f5/32.png) [@zimaane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zimaane)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2025, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-criminals-launder-marked-bills/1025978/90 "2025-12-26T19:35:03Z")
In the case of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping/murder in the 1930s, the police paid ransom money and recorded the serial numbers of the bills. Lists of the serial numbers were printed and distributed to banks. Several bills were found by banks in New York City, and ultimately a bill spent by the killer led to his arrest. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2025, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-criminals-launder-marked-bills/1025978/91 "2025-12-29T16:11:57Z")
The $50,000 ransom was paid in specific, high-denomination gold certificates, whose serial numbers were recorded by investigators. Plus there was forced circulation; the Treasury planned to recall these gold certificates, forcing the kidnapper to spend them rather than hoard them, a strategy that proved successful. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2025, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-criminals-launder-marked-bills/1025978/92 "2025-12-29T16:16:12Z")
It was the most high profile case by far in the world at the time. All bank employees would have been obsessed with being the one who found one of those bills. ---
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2025, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-criminals-launder-marked-bills/1025978/93 "2025-12-30T05:56:01Z")
My home country, Zimbabwe, currently runs on US dollars. The oldest, most worn out dollars imaginable, because, of course, the US mint is not actively supplying Zimbabwe. Laundering new notes might cause some attention there, but used notes would be swallowed into the economy so fast. Possibly not the ideal place for your average US money launderer for various reasons, including distance, and poor banking. There IS a lot of corruption, though, which I assume is beneficial to our hypothetical money launderer. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2026, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-criminals-launder-marked-bills/1025978/94 "2026-01-16T04:15:26Z")
The story that led to the book and movie “83 Hours Till Dawn” did not involve marked bills, but the numbers were recorded and the bills Xeroxed. > **[Kidnapping of Barbara Mackle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping_of_Barbara_Mackle)** > > The 1968 kidnapping of Barbara Jane Mackle was the subject of an autobiographical book which was the basis of two television movies. > Barbara Jane Mackle was born in 1948 to Robert and Jane Mackle. Robert was a property developer and cofounder of the $65 million Deltona Corporation, a major homebuilding company. Barbara has an older brother, four years her senior. > Mackle was attending Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, when she fell ill with the Hong Kong flu after a pandemic struck the cam... The Bobby Greenlease story, from the early 1950s, also involved marked bills, and the fate of that money is a story as interesting and tragic as that of the kidnapping and murder of this 6-year-old child. TL : DR - the people who are believed to have dipped their fingers into the till all met bizarre and tragic ends of their own. > **[Zero at the Bone: The Playboy, the Prostitute, and the Murder of Bobby...](https://www.abebooks.com/9780312376796/Zero-Bone-Playboy-Prostitute-Murder-0312376790/plp)** > > In 1953, six-year-old Bobby Greenlease, the son of a wealthy Kansas City automobile dealer and his wife, was kidnapped from his Roman Catholic elementary school by a woman named Bonnie Heady, a well-scrubbed prostitute who was posing as one of his... ---
**Author:** ![Al128](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/al128/32/16541_2.png) [@Al128](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Al128)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2026, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-criminals-launder-marked-bills/1025978/95 "2026-01-19T22:59:35Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > It happens that Cooper would have had ~25 years to spend his horde before US currency started changing. Or filter a part of it slowly into the financial system… (including casinos). Once your money is in there you effectively side stepped this problem, as you’re no longer hold on physically to "bills with artwork " . ---
**Author:** ![Al128](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/al128/32/16541_2.png) [@Al128](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Al128)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2026, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-criminals-launder-marked-bills/1025978/96 "2026-01-19T23:15:26Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Cooper ended up with 10,000 hot bills. At 20 per day he needs to make the dual switcheroo _five hundred_ times without being seen _once_. Tall order. Even back then. in a walmart quite possibly … in a family run 7-11 in Krapville, OK (or some-such) this would be a good strategy … It never ocurred to me, to just move into a money-handler-position - really smart! ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2026, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-criminals-launder-marked-bills/1025978/97 "2026-01-19T23:29:53Z")
When the bank notices that Honest Bob’s Grocery in Krapville is depositing $500 of hot cash every week the Feds will visit Bob soon. And catch DB soon after. Back in the 1970s spending the cash depended on the banks stopping paying attention. Which we now know they never did nationally & quickly quit doing locally. Nowadays, computers are everywhere and forever. ---
**Author:** ![Al128](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/al128/32/16541_2.png) [@Al128](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Al128)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2026, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-criminals-launder-marked-bills/1025978/98 "2026-01-20T00:39:56Z")
I have no specifi knowledge of pre-internet banking … but just by common-sense: For every person-hijack (and my childhood-memories of the 70ies tells me there were a lot) … there would be ever longer lists of shady dollars to check against, thus **systematically weakening** the check-back process as you’d have serials from cases that were 5 years ago (and have passed through literally 1000s of (legitimate) hands. Also, if you don’t find the money fast, it gets ever more dilluted by regular and legit. distribution, so after a year or so, you will get soo many false positives from all over the country, so any meaningful follow up of FBI will be fruitless, and resource-limited, like chasing a sand-grain in a sandstorm (excuse my poetic-vibe here). Today, computers might find patterns, but before computers, it was quite impossible, I imagine. Just think of through how many hands a $20 note in your wallet have passed over the past year or 3… and try to retrace its geographi-travels. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2026, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-criminals-launder-marked-bills/1025978/99 "2026-01-20T03:46:11Z")
My memory of the 70s was that most of average people’s purchases were done using checks, and not cash. The problem with $20 bills is that they’re only given out in change if the customer pays with $50s or $100s, and ISTM that using large bills wasn’t that common for grocery stores and such. Although taking $10 bills would have limited his take, it possibly could have made the laundering easier. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2026, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-criminals-launder-marked-bills/1025978/100 "2026-01-20T04:03:44Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > The problem with $20 bills is that they’re only given out in change if the customer pays with $50s or $100s, and ISTM that using large bills wasn’t that common for grocery stores and such. But they were given if you wrote the check for a higher amount and got a cash back. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-criminals-launder-marked-bills/1025978.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-criminals-launder-marked-bills/1025978.md?page=6)