Making bail with funny money complicates legal matters

I guess the moral of this story is that it's probably not a good idea to push matters after you've been arrested.

A Long Island man (Cyheam Forney) was arrested for driving on a suspended license, which is a misdemeanor. While attempting to make bail, he tried to pay with a counterfeit $50 bill.

The AP reports what occurred at this point:

Forney was arrested on a misdemeanor suspended license charge — until officers said he proffered the counterfeit currency as bail money. He was being held early Friday on a felony charge of possessing a forged instrument.

According to the AP, Mr. Forney could not be located for comment. Given that he is hard to locate -- drives on suspended licenses then tries to pay bail with funny money -- I wonder if he will appear on his designated court date?

With advancements in printer technology, counterfeit money has become a serious problem. This is the primary reason the U.S. Treasury has been issuing new series of bills with security features designed to make our currency harder to counterfeit.

If you want to learn how to tell good money from bad, the United States Secret Service has an excellent page on it. Additionally, more information (including training materials) can be obtained free of charge at moneyfactory.gov.

AP Story, here.

My last post on funny money also had a unusual, if not sick twist:

Girl Scouts get scammed with fake $100 bill

Girl Scouts get scammed with fake $100 bill

(Courtesy of the Pasco County, Florida Sheriff's website)

If you are like me, you've already bought too many cookies from the Girl Scouts. Everywhere I go, there is a table selling them and it's hard for me to say no to them.

After all, supporting organizations like the Girl Scouts has long been considered an honorable endeavor.

It's sad to say that at least one scammer has ripped them off with a fake (counterfeit) $100.00 bill in front of a local Walmart in Texas.

Marianne Martinez Lewisville (CBS 11 News) reports:

The girls were selling cookies in front of the discount store on Wednesday evening when a man said he wanted to buy two boxes. He promptly gave a 100-dollar-bill to the mother of one of the children. After getting his $93 in change, the man left without getting his cookies.


Realizing the man had left his purchase the girls tried to find him, but were unable to. In the meantime, the mother realized the bill was fake but it was too late.


Police say the crook bleached a $5-bill and printed over it to make it look like a $100-bill. Officers say at first glance the bill looks real. "It's the real paper used by the Department of Treasury. Ya know, it has the appearance of a real bill," said Lewisville Police Department Captain Kevin Deaver.

This particular counterfeit $100.00 bill version has been making the rounds for the past few years. Although, it defeats some of the anti-counterfeiting detection devices out there -- largely because the paper is real -- it can be easily caught by the human eye.

These bills are actually $5 bills that have been washed and reproduced as $100 bills. Although at first glance they look and feel legitimate, the way to spot them is by their security features. On the washed (fake) bill the hologram on the right side -- seen by holding the bill up to light -- is Abraham Lincoln. On a real $100 bill, the image is Benjamin Franklin. Additionally, the embedded strips on either side of the bill will say they are $5 bills instead of $100 bills.

Criminals do this by bleaching the bills, then photocopying the $100 bill over it. Unfortunately, portable printing and photocopying technology has made it easy for all sorts of documents to be counterfeited.

For additional ways to determine real money from fake money, the United States Secret Service has an excellent page about it, here.

Another good resource is:

http://www.moneyfactory.gov/

Both of these sites offer training materials for businesses. Using them might be a good option for charitable organizations, also.

Although, no date is set yet, the government plans to issue redesigned $100 bill sometime in the near future. News reports indicate the reason for the redesign is directly related to how many of these washed bills have been seen in recent years.

Were camera systems hacked in the bomb threat hoaxes?

Photo courtesy of elegantmob at Flickr

The bomb hoaxes occurring nationwide are creating a lot of fear and speculation.

When reading a Slashdot entry, I came across one of the more interesting speculations about these bomb threats. The speculation is that hackers are taking control of the camera systems in the affected locations and have the ability to monitor the hysteria they are creating live via CCTV.

Here is the entry, I read on Slashdot, which is based on a news article and the comments of a certain Chief of Police:

The FBI is investigating fifteen store robberies in eleven states, committed via phone and Internet. The perpetrators hack the store's security system so they can observe their victims. They then make customers take their clothes off and get the store to wire money. From the article,

"A telephone caller making a bomb threat to a Hutchinson, Kan., grocery store kept more than 100 people hostage, demanding they disrobe and that the store wire money to his bank account. ... officials were investigating whether the caller was out of state and may have hacked into the store's security system. "If they can access the Internet, they can get to anything," Hutchinson Police Chief Dick Heitschmidt said. "Anyone in the whole world could have access, if that's what really happened."

Since most camera systems of the digital variety transmit their data (images) via the Internet, I suppose it is (remotely) possible for hackers to get into a not very well protected system and take advantage of it.

The problem is that most of these camera systems, that might have been hacked, belong to major financial institutions or retailers. As far as I know -- most of these systems operate on an intranet, which is also normally protected by a firewall -- and therefore (in theory) would be pretty hard to get into.

A hacker would have to get past the intranet and firewall to access the CCTV systems.

If you are curious about the difference between Internet and intranet, Wikipedia has a good explanation, here.

With numerous companies and institutions being targeted, all of which in theory have different intranets and firewalls, it would take a lot of hacking to take control of all the camera systems involved (my personal speculation).

I suppose it's also possible that hidden cameras were placed in one of the stores and transmitted over the Internet. It could also be possible that a live person is watching and reporting what is going on via telephone.

The problem with these other speculations is that so far, no one is reporting finding any covert camera equipment. My guess is that these places are searched pretty extensively after the threat is made.

Additionally, human beings covertly reporting the "goings on" during one of these hoaxes doesn't seem very practical, once you think about it. This has occurred in eleven States and the amounts requested aren't in the millions of dollars. It wouldn't be very feasible to use human beings over this wide an area, considering the amount of money involved.

I've learned to "never say never," but I suspect a little fast talking, possible knowledge of the victim's layout (most of these places are set up the same) and the use of fear is how this bomb threat scam is being accomplished.

When I first read about this, I reflected that fear is being used in order to get money wired to criminals. Fear is just another method of social engineering (trickery), which seems to be one common denominator in most of the scams involving the wiring of money.

Despite the fact that many of these scams are spreading quickly with the assistance of technology, it still takes a human element to make the whole thing work.

Exploiting wire transfer systems to steal money is nothing new, either. Wire transfer transactions have become a preferred method of stealing money in a lot of Internet type scams. From romance to lottery scams, with a lot of other variations in-between, Internet criminals have been tricking people into wiring money to them for quite awhile now.

When money is wired, once it is picked up (often within minutes), it's very hard to trace. Please note that these other scams involving wire transfers are predicated on tricking human beings, also.

The good news is that the FBI, Secret Service and Western Union are actively going after the people behind this. Rumor has it they are close to making some arrests.

Since the exact details of the case are being kept confidential, which is important to give the good guys an edge in catching these crooks, all the rest of us can do is speculate.

Let's wish them success in their endeavors and look forward to announcement that the people behind this have been caught! After all, this hoax (scam) is NOT very amusing!

Of note, most experts will always strongly recommend to treat a bomb hoax seriously, despite the fact that most of them are hoaxes. It is recommended that all organizations have a plan on how to handle these scenarios. NSI.org has an extensive page with some pretty good advice (my opinion), here.

Slashdot entry by Erris (531066) and posted by samzenpus, here.

The article, they are referring to comes from News 5 in Phoenix, Arizona.

LA Gangs take a vacation in Hawaii using funny (counterfeit) money

I've read a lot about street gangs, who used to finance themselves by selling drugs, moving into the financial crimes arena. Some say financial crimes are a lot more profitable, and the punishment for getting caught isn't nearly as harsh.

Looks like some of them have gone West (Hawaii) to enjoy a little vacation financed with "funny money."

The HawaiiChannel.com is reporting:

Thousands of dollars worth of counterfeit $100 bills are flowing into Hawaii, most likely from Los Angeles-based gangs, according to Secret Service officials.

For the last week or so, $2,000 to $2,500 a day in counterfeit $100 bills have been passed at retail stores in Waikiki and across the islands, the Secret Service said.

Some high-end Hawaii retailers are taking a hit.

Apparently, the members of the Bloods and Crips involved in this (didn't know they were hanging out together) sometimes buy merchandise and then refund it a short while later. Refund fraud is a common way criminals launder money, or turn it into disposable income.

According to the article, counterfeit (funny) money is also being passed by members of the military coming back from the Middle East.

HawaiiNewsChannel.com article, here. There is a pretty good video on how to detect counterfeit money to the left of the article.

The article confirms what I've seen a lot of in the past couple of years, which is that a lot of the counterfeit money in circulation are five dollar bills washed into hundred bills. Because of this, the counterfeit detection pens, which most merchants use don't work.

The best way to detect them is to hold them up to the light and if the hologram is Abraham Lincoln instead of Benjamin Franklin, it is a counterfeit. The embedded strips will also state that they are five dollar bills, if they are counterfeit.

If you are in the money business, I recommend teaching your employees how to visually inspect money. Counterfeit detection devices are not 100 percent reliable.

The Money Factory (government site) has a lot of good information on how to detect counterfeit money, here.

The United States Secret Service also has a page on their site with a lot of information, here.

It is no wonder why skimming (credit/debit card fraud) is becoming a nasty problem!

Skimming credit and debit cards has become too easy with the irresponsible sale of technology. All the necessary techie devices to commit what many consider a "high tech crime" are being sold on the Internet - even on auction sites - such as eBay.

Yesterday, I read about an arrest of one of the Internet vendors by the Calgary Police, after they were tipped off by the United States Secret Service (USSS).

Here is what the press release from the Calgary Police Department said:

In January 2006, investigators with the U.S. Secret Service specializing in payment card fraud and Internet crime, identified a person using the Internet name of “Dron,” who was advertising skimming equipment for sale over the Internet.

A possible Calgary connection was identified and investigators assigned to the Calgary Police Service Commercial Crime Unit were involved in the investigation.

A joint, cross-border investigation was initiated. A Calgary resident was identified as the alleged manufacturer and exporter of devices which could be used for skimming data from debit and credit cards. With the assistance of other CPS units, the Calgary case has been successfully concluded.

There isn't a lot of information on how Dron was advertising his wares on the Internet, but the sad truth is he probably isn't the only vendor selling these devices.

I checked eBay (this morning) and devices that could be used to skim payment card details are being hawked (as usual) on the auction site.

In March, I wrote about a new variation (mutation) of skimming, where PIN pads were replaced at a Edmonton Wendys. The fake PIN pads are capable of transmitting card data and PIN numbers(using wireless technology) to fraudsters, who are probably sitting in a car in a parking lot.

I suspect the current fake PIN pads are being used to defeat PCI (payment card industry) data protection standards. The information is sent to the fraudster before it goes through the merchant's point of sale system.

PCI data protection standards have become a major concern lately, but it appears the criminals are already working on countermeasures that will get past them. Besides PIN pads, portable devices, used by dishonest insiders are a big problem right now, also.

Interestingly enough, even with all the media attention about PCI compliance, a large number of merchants have failed to implement them. A case to point at would be the recent TJX data breach, where at least 45 million records were compromised over a several year period.

In the Wendy's post, I identified a website called hackershomepage.com, which sells a lot of devices that can be used to commit financial crimes, including skimming. I just checked (and sadly) they are still up and open-for-business.

Of course, they publish a disclaimer on their page:

We WILL NOT answer emails from anyone asking about illegal activities, or how to use our products for illegal activities...they will automatically be deleted. All products are designed for testing and exploring the vulnerabilities of CUSTOMER-OWNED equipment, and no illegal use is encouraged or implied. We WILL NOT knowingly sell to anyone with the intent of using our products for illegal activities or uses. It is your responsibility to check the applicable laws in your city, state, and country.

This obviously is enough to keep them in business.

The PIN pad skimming variation has now been identified in both the Eastern and Western United States, as well as Canada.

Maybe if there were stricter controls on the sale of the devices that enable skimming, the problem wouldn't be so bad?

Meanwhile, expensive security technology (compliance) is being made mandatory. If history repeats itself, any technology designed (which is expensive in itself), will have a limited life span. I'm all for technological solutions, but if we don't back them up with consequences, they tend to have a limited effectiveness.

There needs to be more social solutions (laws) to bolster some of this expensive anti-fraud technology.

With millions of victims and billions of dollars being lost, I wonder why we allow this activity to be marketed over the Internet?

We are making hard working people, like USSS Agents and the Calgary Police, work pretty hard to fight a growing problem, which is victimizing a lot of PEOPLE and businesses!

Calgary Police press release, here.