Criminal - The Buck Stops Here

Episode Date: February 28, 2014

With the advent of the Inkjet printer, counterfeiting money became as simple as a trip to Staples. By the year 2000, there were 72 million of these homemade dollars in circulation. The real question is… who was behind them all? Today, we talk to a woman who “made” her own money. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop.  Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for Criminal comes from Apple Podcasts. Each month, Apple Podcasts highlights one series worth your attention, and they call these series essentials. This month, they recommend Wondery's Ghost Story, a seven-part series that follows journalist Tristan Redman as he tries to get to the bottom of a ghostly presence in his childhood home. His investigation takes him on a journey involving homicide detectives, ghost hunters, and even psychic mediums, and leads him to a dark secret about his own family.

Check out Ghost Story, a series essential pick, completely ad-free on Apple Podcasts. Your own weight loss journey is personal. Everyone's diet is different. Everyone's bodies are different. And according to Noom, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Thank you. for a healthier lifestyle. Stay focused on what's important to you with Noom's psychology and biology-based approach. Sign up for your free trial today at Noom.com. So he was about 6'3", 6'4". kind of lanky, but played basketball, so muscular, like huge nose, big lips. This is Maya, and when she was 19, she was infatuated with a guy named Adam. These names aren't real. We're using fake names for reasons that'll become apparent later.

Just kind of hit all my personal buttons in a way that honestly very few people have since then. It was almost as if he was my physical ideal and I actually remember seeing him for the first time my freshman year and really feeling like my breath had been taken away. When you're infatuated with someone you can convince yourself of a lot of things like who they are and what they're capable of. And Maya was infatuated. I had this feeling of really not being able to believe that I was allowed to physically touch this person. But just because you can touch something doesn't mean it's real.

I'm Phoebe Dredge, and this is Criminal. So our first date was actually pretty hilarious i'm not sure exactly how it was arranged but i was very very very excited about it for multiple reasons um one that i was just physically kind of putty when i looked at him even but also because he lived in brooklyn um and so we both went to nyu but he and i lived in the dorms in the city. And he had an apartment in Brooklyn. And I think I had been to Brooklyn once. So that night we actually went to a magazine party because he had worked at a magazine briefly before school. So I was at this very sophisticated party.

And people were very much in love with him there. And women were all over him there the way they were everywhere. But it was definitely an older crowd. I mean, we must have been 19 and everyone was probably in their late 20s and I got completely hammered like so shit face that I think he actually had to carry me back to his apartment which was of course mortifying so we went back to his apartment he put on some D'Angelo I think he smoked weed or we both smoked some weed. And I was like, this is actual heaven. Like this is my understanding of what heaven is. But then nothing could really happen because I basically blacked out. The next day I woke up and they were,

you know, like blunt papers kind of all over the floor and this and that. And he was like, yeah, you passed out. So I basically just smoked weed and like listened to music. And I was really embarrassed. And then so we started our trek back to the city. I wasn't really sure how to get home. And we got our kind of the standard bacon, egg and cheeses. And I think I got a coffee and he got a Snapple and he, uh, we went to the train station and he swiped me in on his MetroCard and then jumped the turnstile. Immediately a plain clothes police officer started chasing him. So I was stuck holding his breakfast while he takes off like a bolt of lightning and is literally being chased around by a cop. I see him hiding behind

a trash can. I see the cop running up a flight of stairs. And I just got on the train and went back to my dorm with his breakfast and my own. And he finally called me either that night or the next morning and just tried to play it off. And she let him. It didn't seem like that big of a deal. It was kind of a funny story. So while it's not the typical foundation for a successful relationship, they ended up going out again and again. They dated for a couple of years. But slowly, Maya started to notice other little things. Like he told her he grew up in the Bronx, when he was actually from New Jersey. He was always borrowing things from people, asking for favors.

And he managed to almost never spend money. His whole thing was figuring out how to live with nothing. So at two points when we lived together, we lived for free. He had this incredible way of talking his way into kind of people's homes and then saying he would do something for them. And he just, I've never seen anything like it. He would just get away with not paying rent. They graduated from college. Maya was taking acting classes. Adam wasn't working. And those little things, the lies and the mysterious ways in which

Adam always got his way, began to escalate. One of the biggest things he did was steal a projector from a hotel that he was just kind of walking through randomly. And he found a conference room with a really fancy projector and just walked out with it and was very excited because it was something like $10,000. And he didn't know if he wanted it or if he wanted to sell it. But it I got really upset and he basically bullied me into saying, you know, this corporation or these people have so much money, they're stupid for leaving it out and I need it and I want it and I took it. It was there. So he's doing all of these things you kind of know about him, what he's doing. Did you ever help him? Well, I didn't help him until we started counterfeiting money. So how did, what do you mean until you started counterfeiting money? Well, one day I came home to the apartment we were living in, again, living in for free.

And he very proudly showed me a $20 bill. And I said, where did this come from? And he explained that he had this color printer and he had spent the entire day scanning and then, you know, kind of lining up copies of $20 bills so that he could create something that was two sided. And actually, it looked pretty decent. And he went through a period of kind of trying to find the right color and finding the right paper. Because, you know, now bills feel and are very slick. They're very hard to kind of wear down. But back then you could still have kind of a nubbly or very rough feeling bill. Wait a second. It seems it seems to me like you need more than just like a color printer to counterfeit money or like just some special paper. I mean, isn't that what like there are thousands of people that just spend their whole lives trying to make sure that you can't just buy a color printer and start printing hundreds? It was child's play, kind of. I mean, it couldn't have been a more basic and kind of pathetic operation. I mean, it was two kids in their 20s, you know, fucking around in Brooklyn. And it worked.

How long did it take him to convince you to actually use the money? Do you remember the first time it really left the house? It did not take long. The first time we went out, we did discuss it. And we I think we tried it once or twice at a deli and it didn't work. I mean, what do you mean it didn't work? So they would just say this is fake. Were you mortified? Like I would just I would I would pretend to be like, are you kidding me? I got ripped off. Like, yeah, no, I had a whole song and dance every time I got caught. Like, are you kidding? What am I supposed to do? How did this happen? I can't believe this. Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. And it was kind of through these, these like pathetic little plays that we'd put on that we realized that people were much nicer to me if I was the one who did it and got caught. They just kind of treated me like a stupid little girl, but would

actually get much angrier at him. So what we figured out then was that we really couldn't, we wouldn't be successful if we were doing it at a place where people had the opportunity to pay a lot of attention to the money that we were handing them. So any place like a well-lit bodega or a supermarket wasn't going to fly. So we quickly realized that we needed to do it at bars, places where bartenders were busy, places where it was dark and people were distracted. And what we were doing, we weren't interested in drinking or partying. We were just interested in getting the change. So, you know, $6 beer, $14 back, and you pocket that and maybe drink part of the drink and leave.

So one of the first places we went, I got caught and I, you know, performed my little performance. And I remember very distinctly the bartender saying, I'm going to choose to believe your lie, but this isn't real and you need to get out of the bar. And I kind of skedaddled and freaked out. I made my boyfriend drop the next bill. That's what we called it, dropping bills at another bar. And it was actually a female bartender. And she flipped out and chased him out of the bar and said she was going to call the cops. And he was laughing, but he was terrified. And that's where we really realized that I was the person who was going to be most successful. Support for Criminal comes from Apple Podcasts. Each month, Apple Podcasts highlights one series worth your attention,

and they call these series essentials. This month, they recommend Wondery's Ghost Story, a seven-part series that follows journalist Tristan Redman as he tries to get to the bottom of a ghostly presence in his childhood home. His investigation takes him on a journey involving homicide detectives, ghost hunters, and even psychic mediums, and leads him to a dark secret about his own family. Check out Ghost Story, a series essential pick, completely ad-free on Apple Podcasts.

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Available feature, Bose is a registered trademark of the Bose Corporation. Maya didn't realize this at the time, but she and Adam were part of a trend. Lots of young people were getting printers and making their own money. In 2000, 40% of all counterfeited money, about $72 million, came off of inkjet printers. It's a big deal. Counterfeiting is a federal crime, investigated by the Secret Service. If you get caught, you're facing up to 15 years in prison and massive fines. I don't think we ever hit up more than six places in an evening.

But inevitably during one of those, during those nights, someone would stop me somewhere. I remember we were on a good streak and then I had to go to this one bar. And these were all bars that I liked and had gone to previously. And this bar had a bouncer out there that particular night. And there was a cover charge and I tried to pass off a bill to previously. And this bar had a bouncer out there that particular night, and there was a cover charge, and I tried to pass off a bill to him. And he said that it wasn't real. And I was a little bit drunk at that point. So I did my whole song and dance. And I kind of sensed that he knew that I was full of shit. But he again, just kind of let me wander away. And did you ever go home after like, you know, the night where the bartender said, I'm going to choose to believe you? Would you go home at night and say to him, this is nuts? Why are we doing this? This is not worth it. He thought it was really fun, and I thought it was a little bit fun myself. The final time that I was caught was so bad that that's what made us stop.

But it took getting that close to being in serious trouble for the rest of my life for me to kind of snap to it. Maya says the whole operation had only ever been the two of them. They never told anyone what they were doing and never used the fake money when they were out with others. Then one night, Maya had a childhood friend come to visit. He was wealthy and wanted to go someplace a lot nicer than the dive bars they had been going to. So we go to this, you know, super swanky club, very 90s club scene kind of place. And I have a stack of bills in my purse and a copy of Macbeth that I was using because I was memorizing a monologue from Lady Macbeth's and he I think also had bills on him but as usual I was

kind of the one in charge. How much would you carry when you say you were carrying like a stack of bills? How much how much counterfeit money would you carry in you at one time? I think at that point I probably had around 100 or $140. And he probably kept the same amount. So he dropped one bill successfully at a register and drank whatever drink he was given. Then I successfully dropped a bill at another register. And we kind of just kept the evening going. And then at the end of the night, we were kind of toward the back of the club was one of those places that had multiple bars in multiple areas. And I was kind of staking it out. It was the one we hadn't gone to yet. And we were not doing a very good job of being subtle. And I was very aware of the bartender,

this hot female bartender was aware that we were looking at her and she was kind of staring right back. And then I kind of entered into this kind of bizarro dream state where I knew that if I dropped a bill with her, I was going to get caught. And I physically couldn't prevent myself from walking over to the bar and doing it. So I walked over, I ordered a drink and I slapped down the bill and she immediately knew it was fake. And I kind of tried to launch into my little song and dance. And she said she grabbed my hand and she said, I'm calling security. And I don't know if she got on the phone or pressed a button, but I was immediately swarmed by security guards and taken into the back of the club.

They didn't go through my bag. I refused to give them my ID. And I just kind of kept saying, I don't know where this came from. I'm so sorry. This is so stupid. I then tried the tactic of getting really angry and saying that my friends were waiting for me. And then they got on their walkie talkies and they said, check all the registers. And then I thought I was sunk because there were definitely bills in other registers. And at that point, I thought, OK, I'm done. She waited while the bartenders carefully checked each piece of cash. And somehow, which seems just like incredible luck, no one found anything. The bartenders must have already passed the fake 20s on as change to other customers.

They let me go and I did not act cool. I immediately kind of tore through the entrance and pushed through, pushed past the bouncers and pushed through the line instead of the exit. And I went out alone away from my friends. I just felt like I just had to get out of there. And what I didn't realize was that by doing that, I was causing a scene and essentially incriminating myself. So my friends followed me out. And then the same security guards who had been detaining me intercepted me on the street, they went through a back exit of the club. And they said, Why are you in such a rush to get out of out of there. And then this is the whole scene that unfolded in front of my friends. They said, Okay, we're searching you, you know, this and that. And I

said, You can't you can't, that's not legal. And they said, Again, it's either us or the cops. And finally, I just gave them my purse. And they, they looked through my wallet and didn't find any bills because the bills weren't there. And then they flipped through the Macbeth and they didn't find it. They just didn't, they just flipped past it. I think probably because there were only a few bills and it wasn't, it didn't cause enough of a gap for like, when they were skimming their finger over it to find it. But it was I didn't understand how that happened. It was almost impossible.

And where was your boy? Was your boyfriend watching this whole scene? He was watching and all. So are all of my wealthy friends. What happens next? You go home with your boyfriend. So I went home with my boyfriend. We were both really upset.

We both agreed that we weren't going to do it again. And then I met up with my good friend from home the next day. And he said, so are you counterfeiting money? And I just looked at him and I said, nope. And we kind of had a mutual moment where we decided to agree to believe my lie. Because he definitely didn't believe me and I definitely wasn't about to tell him the truth. Do you think of yourself as a criminal? I don't. Why? I think I must I'm not sure why so this is I've never really considered this before but I didn't even though

I did have criminal intentions you know I wanted this money I wasn't, even though I did have criminal intentions, you know, I wanted this money. I wasn't trying to hurt anyone and don't feel that I particularly hurt anyone. Although certainly I guess it's possible that if a bartender was caught, you know, if, if they were caught with a counterfeit bill in their cash register that they could get fired and that's totally possible. But to me it was so stupid and has kind of become a bit more fun in retro. It's become both more fun and much more embarrassing in retrospect. You know, it's a great story to tell at a party because I wasn't caught. And how long did you and Adam last after this incident?

Not long. Maya left New York. She went to California to try to get Adam out of her life forever, which was hard because as much as she was scared of what he could make her do, she was still just as fascinated with him as she was from the start. It's been more than 15 years, but as far as she remembers, they only profited about $400. And frankly, she doesn't know what they did with it. She does know they didn't spend it on anything nice. Because Adam was so cheap. The show is produced by Eric Menel, Lauren Spohr, and me.

Julianne Alexander does our episode art. If you like what we're doing, you can subscribe on iTunes or visit our website, thisiscriminal.com. We're on Twitter, at Criminal Show. I'm Phoebe Judge, and this is Criminal. Great. I think we got it. Do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere? And you're making content that no one sees, and it takes forever to build a campaign? Well, that's why we built HubSpot.

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