Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - PRO COUNTERFEITER REVEALS SECRETS...

Episode Date: July 21, 2023

PRO COUNTERFEITER REVEALS SECRETS...

You know, knock on the door, I start flushing this paper money. I put a, like, probably two grand in the toilet and flush it. I go to put another few thousand in the toilet, but I guess they shut the water off. Hey, this is Matt Cox, and I'm going to be interviewing Jeff Turner. Jeff Turner is a counterfeiter fresh out of a federal prison, and check this out. bro so you're you're from what from Tennessee no I was a born in Miami grew up in Clearwater Tampa area I moved to Knoxville Tennessee probably about eight years ago okay and that's where I caught my case was in Knoxville all right um so so what so

where so you were in I mean mom dad like um you know I had a good childhood for the most part, kind of gotten to, like, drugs and street life at a younger age, you know. But I'd say when I was about 25, I met my ex-wife and, you know, kind of went straight for a while. Right. Well, I mean, so you graduated high school. What were you doing after high school? Oh. I mean, you said when straight makes it seem like you were doing something.

I started selling drugs. Oh, okay. That was in high school or after high school? In high school, after high school. You know, started selling weed, not really on any, like, big scale. Right. Then the pills kind of hit Tampa area. Right, oxies.

Yeah. And, you know, I was selling lots of oxies and developed a habit, to say the least. right you know but i was counterfeiting a little bit when i was younger um kind of toyed with it and never on not on like a huge scale but you know i couldn't get the bills perfect but i was selling them and making a little bit of money and then did that for like a year and then stopped right when you say younger how how young like 19 20 right what were you using then just basic equipment over the counter or? Yeah. I mean, even, even recently I was using, you know, I didn't have like printing presses and, you know what I mean? It's all digital nowadays. Like the capability of

digital printers has like advanced extremely in the past 10 years. And that's what the Secret Service was like wondering how I got the bills to look so good with just regular, you know, $200, $300 printers. But I'm a graphic designer. So a lot of it has to do with like breaking the images down and sharpening them on the digital file well so so you were basically we're just kind of like selling drugs that make ends meet and you'd counterfeit a little bit but you said then you met your wife and stopped or i met uh my wife um so we decided to move to to knoxville um because my parents moved up in that area her mom lived up in north georgia so we were just kind of getting out of florida in the sign business was doing good you know i mean i still had a drug habit but i've always

been functioning you know what i mean right kept the job in a house and everything you know i've got kids so um but at this sign company i ended up wrecking a truck so i had a newborn baby was like you know those late nights tired i got called into work um i worked like 80 hours that week with a newborn baby at home like not sleeping so I was doing a service call in a bucket truck and wrecked the truck so I fell asleep at the wheel so basically that like they let me go with that job because of that or whatever reason and and this was like two months before our lease was up in our house too so I lost my job didn't have a lot of money saved so that's kind of what put me back into the counterfeiting thing I was like well I've got two months to figure

out a new house a new house and you know a way to make money so i kind of just said fuck it let's go back to to this and do it on a larger scale um so i within those two months before my lease was up i basically just stayed at home on the computer 10 12 hours a day like uh you know making these digital images is sharp and clean so like uh to prevent counterfeiting you can't scan a picture of a bill or print one because the printer recognizes that image and it just it'll print like just a little bit of it and then just stop really yeah so you nice instead of scanning the pictures i just take a photo and then upload that photo which kind of got around that security measure that the printers have um and then like with graphic design i would take that image and break it down

to like three or four different images. So it would print it. So the printer wouldn't recognize the bill because you're taking the background color and having one image that's just the background color of the bill. And then another image with the serial numbers and treasury seal and then another image with all the black work. And you're just running the paper through over and over again.

I printed three prints for the front of the bill and two prints for the back of the bill. And then I printed the strip in the watermark on the back of the back. So then I could then glue the two pieces together and the strip and watermark would be embedded in them. How are you getting this strip? I just printed it.

So I was using, and the Secret Service said that this was like a large key to my success was I was using Bible paper to print the bills on. How did you figure out how to use Bible paper? Trial and error. Lots of, uh, so like, I've read the art of making money. Yeah, yeah.

And, you know, he was sandwiching too. What's his name, Art Williams? Williams, yeah, yeah. I knew I had a buddy who was locked up with him. Oh, yeah? Yeah. He said when he, after when the book came out, he said, Art was walking around passing out.

He said, man, he would tell him everybody about the book. And he was, yeah. It was a good book. It was a good book. I read it in prison. Yeah, that's what originally gave me the idea to start counterfeit him when I was like 19. I was reading that book.

But I knew he sandwiched two pieces together. I think he was using like a telephone book paper or newsprint or some kind of other thing. I know he had through trial and he had got, eventually I knew he was ordering the paper. Yeah. And he couldn't, he couldn't order the exact size paper that the, that the, that they were using for bills. So he figured, okay, fuck it. I'll order half the size and just glue them together. and that'll give me the ability to inside of it to be able to glue the, also glue the...

See, I think a large portion of his deal was he was trying to find paper that would mark yellow with the counterfeit pen. See, I found kind of a way around that. So, like, the Bible paper was thin enough to sandwich two sheets together and opaque enough to where you couldn't see the strip and watermarked through it unless you held it up to the light. So it was... And for some reason, certain kinds of Bible paper aren't, like, bleached so if you put it in a black light it glows that dull purple just like real money as opposed to like all other papers glow that bright blue like fluorescent color um so basically bible paper was like perfect i mean it it was opaque it was thin it glowed right in a black

light and it didn't mark with a pen though so i would spray it with a matte lacquer spray to create a barrier because counterfeit pens are iodine-based ink so like the iosy. iodine in the ink reacts with the starch in the paper. So by spraying it with lacquer, you create a barrier, so there's no chemical reaction between the iodine pen and the paper. And that helped, like, it seems like every security feature I beat, solved multiple issues. You know what I mean? Which was just, they exponentially got better every time I.

So, like, the lacquer spray not only helped with the counterfeit pen, but it also gave it that crisp texture like real thin you know if you spray it with lacquer and just take an iron to it real quick yeah it becomes crispy and then hold and spray another coat of lacquer from a distance it would feel like sandpaper and then you take it and just go on the edge of a table and it it it crisped up and it knocked off that gritty sandpaper feel but gave it that texture people would scratch the to feel the texture and the ink and stuff so it so it felt like paper it i mean felt like money looked like money it marked it it it it beat the black light and you could see through it just like normal money so it was just

it was basically flawless i mean from the you brought paperwork from the secret service in your discovery and stuff so how long did it take you to figure all that out though um like so within the two months that like my lease was up i got fired i had two months to figure stuff out so within those two months i uh i don't remember exactly how the bible paper came apart it was just kind of trial and error. I was looking for thin paper and I basically just one day felt it and was like, oh, this is thin. I tried it and it worked great.

So, you know, within those two months, I edited the images. I broke them down, zoomed in, got rid of all the gray, fuzzy, you know, like sharpened the images really well. Because it was a photo. Yeah. Which, I mean, high resolution cameras take pretty good photos already, but to, so like each print has to be color matched. If you just print the picture of a $100 bill, the colors will be off because in order to get the green on the treasury seal and serial numbers correct, the background color will be off and vice versa.

Yeah, cool because it's printed on paper that's slightly colored and has fibers and all the other stuff, right? Yeah, you're trying. Like the paper, I believe they use like just dyed paper, but I'm printing the background color. So you've got to match that to money. You know what I mean? right um so you know in those two months i after it took well it took more than two months i started kind of doing it after two months and making money um a buddy of mine that worked at the sign company with me uh like so one of my buddies called me and was like because like i said

i had a drug problem at the time you know on top of being broke and no job and having a you know at least a hundred two hundred dollar a heroin habit right four kids you know um but A buddy of mine called me and was like, you know, if you need any dope call this dude. I'm not going to say his name. Right. A buddy of mine at the sign company. I knew he sold a little bit of weed. And I didn't know, you know, the extent or anything because we were just working together.

So he got fired from the sign company. I got fired. So I called him one day and went over to his house to get some stuff. And, you know, he was way bigger of a drug dealer than I thought. You know what I mean? Like, he was dealing in multiple, you know, like meth, heroin, coke, weed, all sorts of people. Right. Who's a professional. Yeah, so, and I ran it by him.

I was like, you know, I'm starting to print some money again. You know what I mean? Maybe you could use it to re-up in Atlanta. Because at this point, I was nervous about spending on myself. I always wanted to just sell them to people. Right. You didn't want to go into a store, hand somebody, and then they go, oh, hold on a second. The security guard shows up and arrests you.

The bill's got progressively better. So, like, each bill, I'm hand-making. So it's like you're cutting them out, you're spraying it, you're squeaging and gluing, and then using, I was using holographic green eye shadow to paint on the color shifting 100. Right. So, like, the more you do it, the more practice you get, the better they look. So in the beginning, I wasn't, I knew they looked good. They were passable, but, like, I was still nervous about going into stores and shopping.

You know what I mean? So I started giving this guy, this drug dealer, bills, to go to Atlanta and, you know, buy drugs. So he started doing that. And eventually, like, this only lasted probably three or four months. But he got, his house got rated. So what is, so if you're giving him 10,000 or 5,000, I don't know how much you're giving him to buy the drugs. If you're giving him 10,000, like what percentage of actual money? money are you getting in return for that?

About 20% usually. Okay. I mean, it was circumdial. He was a friend of mine. So if he was five grand short on re-upping, I may just give it to him. And he, you know, but then another time he'd give him 10, he'd give me, you know, 2,500 or whatever. It's usually about 20 cents on the dollar, 25 cents. But that only lasted a few months.

And I was kind of like perfecting the bills as I was working with him. I was giving him a lot of fake 20s. I was doing 20s too at that time because those, the 20s I wasn't putting strips in or anything. Those I was just printing on regular paper with no strips or watermarks. He was just mixing it in with large sums of money to re-up.

The hundreds, obviously, people tend to scrutinize more and those need security features all on the beat, but he got arrested. His house got raided and one of his charges was possession of counterfeit money.

so it made me kind of nervous you know what I mean I don't you know you know you don't know if I heard that he might be cooperating of course I mean you know you never know and like I'd say well no this was before the lease was up so after a couple months I was doing it for a couple months and then he got arrested in the I was at my house one day and we we missed the trash you know we didn't bring the trash by the road one morning right I know that's how you know the Secret Service tries to get a search warrant. If they suspect you're counterfeiting, they'll go through your trash cans first to look for evidence, you know. So I'd always bag up my trash separately, like all the counterfeiting.

I had like an office with, you know, different color shifting sprays, ventilation to spray it with lacquer indoors. But I'd bag up all the trash, you know, separately. But about a week after he got arrested, I noticed the trash truck was, It was like trash picked up on a Monday, and this was like a Wednesday. And it was just parked outside of my house. So I'm like, that's weird. I'm like, oh, can you take? I forgot to bring the trash down.

Can you take this? So we can't throw it in. Absolutely we can. Boom, dump it in. It was empty. You could tell. It made a big sound. And then they just drove off and like a blacked out suburban drove off after them.

So that like spooked me. You know what I mean? I knew there was no counterfeiting evidence in there. But still, it, you know, you're being watched. it appeared that way which the Secret Service in Knoxville said I mean after I got arrested I asked them if that was them if they knew

they didn't admit to it I don't know if they would though but right but anyway so then my lease was up so I was like fuck this I'm not even getting a new house I'm gonna go all in with this money thing and we'll just stay at hotels you know so we started living at hotels and I just met

multiple different drug dealers and usually I'd you know rip them off basically like there were a few at the end that I was honest with them about the bills but like usually I'd just go buy heroin from these drug dealers and you know I'd get them for five grand ten grand worth of heroin

right so you're giving five grand a fake bills getting 5,000 in heroin and then you're reselling the heroin I mean yeah doing it selling it whatever you know well I mean I'm assuming you're making some you've got to be making money you're living in a hotel oh yeah yeah of course well that's and and by this point so i started like the first time i i actually went in

and broke a bill it was in a taco bell which now i know like you don't go to fast food restaurants because a lot of those places have the safes under there with like bill validators it's basically like a vending machine safe right that's how they deposit money as you put it through this bill validator and uh my bills didn't work in in that because it detects like infrared and magnetic ink and all these other security features so but at the time i didn't know that because i just started breaking them i went into a taco bell at like midnight before they closed and she just felt it up i bought like two tacos she gave me ninety five dollars right so i was like hey you know he was nervous at first but it worked without a problem at all so did they ever

figure it out later like because you have photos and stuff of of you passing bills Yeah, yeah. Well, that was... I don't know if that was one of them. You're saying no? No, no. Okay. Eventually, you know, whatever store, they get a counterfeit bill at the end of the week.

The armored truck will come pick up their deposit, take it to the bank, and then the bank will realize that this money's fake. Right. But then they only have a window of, okay, we got this counterfeit bill within this week of time. Yeah, they don't have any idea. How many hundred dollars does it? It's not worth. It's not worth...

You'd have to review a week's worth of footage. Even them, you're not getting your hundred bucks back. Exactly. So now I spend. six hundred dollars reviewing or a thousand dollars reviewing footage you're going to pay a federal special agent to sit there for a week reviewing footage so you just hit yeah i felt pretty confident that uh i could just start shopping right at that point um so you know basically me and my wife but the problem was finding the bible paper um because i tried to buy it in bulk online but

apparently there's there's only three manufacturers of bible paper and you have to buy it in the world, those three. And you have to buy it in, like, giant reams, which was just not, you know, didn't want to do that. I didn't want a paper trail of, you know, receiving a palette of Bible paper, you know. So I'd go on road trips to, you know, Atlanta, Chattanooga. I was in Knoxville.

I went to every bookstore. I was Googling Barks and Noble, Books a Million, going there and just ripping out the blank four to 10 to 20 blank pages in the back. So, like, in a Bible section out of Barnes & Noble, say there's 100 Bibles with, you know, four to 10 sheets in each one, I mean, that one bookstore is worth 100 grand, worth of paper. So, but eventually that, you know, eventually I literally ripped out every blank page of every Bible from Atlanta to Cleveland, Ohio, you know. So I started paying maintenance men at hotel.

I went, I was living out of hotels, so every day. day I'd check into a new hotel room and take at least a two, three, four blank pages out of the Bible in the nightstand. And one day we'd check into a hotel and there was no Bible there. So I saw the maintenance guy and I was like, hey, let me get the Bible. I was like, you don't keep Bibles in the rooms anymore? He's like, no, we've got boxes of them in the maintenance closet. So I was like, let me buy those bottles. I'm like, I'll give you a gram of dope, a hundred bucks, whatever. Let me get those boxes of Bibles. So we were paying maintenance guys to, you know, just bring us all.

all the Bibles from each hotel. Right. And one of my, the co-conspirator that set me up was going up to Cleveland, Ohio, to buy drugs. And he was paying maintenance guys at hotels to, you know. I was giving him fake money. He was going up there to buy heroin and come back with heroin and Bible paper. But, yeah, I mean. Well, the guy that.

And what happened? guy that set me up i i ended up like meeting him from uh just buying how long did this go on for about two years so for two years you're living in hotels yeah pretty much hopping around see like with counterfeiting you got a you have to move around yeah i mean you don't want to sit which that was a mistake of mine was spending too much in knoxville um which that was the reason i i i got caught was because guys set me up up in Cleveland, Ohio. Right. But still, just in retrospect, I was spending too much money in Knoxville.

I spent like $400,000 in fake bills in Knoxville in the course of like a year and a half. But, so... Did you ever see the movie to live and die in L.A.? No, I've heard of it, and it's William Defoe and he was printing money. Oh, you've got to see that movie. It's a great movie. Yeah. I'd like to see that.

I know about it. I've been meaning to watch it. Yeah. I mean, it's old. Like, how old are you? 35?

Fuck, it's probably 25, 30 years old. But it's the 80s, I think. Yeah, but it'd be great, though. You'd love it. You'd love it. This guy is like super professional.

But, you know, it's also, there's just, it's dangerous. You know, you realize, I mean, I was tons of fucking money.

It's a dangerous, it can be a dangerous situation. And he's been, they know, they're tracking him. They're all over him. And he knows everything. everything. He knows their tactics

and he knows what they can do and what they can't do. Like, he literally knows he's talking to FBI agents. Yeah. Or are they secret? I think they have... I think back then it was FBI. Well, I know, Secret Service always been counterfeit. It would have always been counterfeit. But it's still FD. And the thing,

I think they're FBI. But regardless, only because people don't realize Secret Service. I have people, when I get arrested, they're like, Secret Service, Cox is lying. He wasn't arrested by the Secret Service. they only protect the president or and and and and and us money and they wouldn't be after him he's lying it's like motherfucker you shut you don't know what you're fucking talking service took over like all financial crimes right especially if it deals with identity theft yeah like any financial

crime crime can still be investigated by the FBI but if identity theft is involved and almost always get shifted to the secret service yeah but regardless um yeah I mean great movie you gotta watch that movie that i'm sorry uh sorry um sorry got to watch that movie i'd like to watch it um so one of these guys i was buying heroin from i got probably got him for like ten thousand dollars over the course of a few weeks um and these have never come back on you well see a lot of times i'd do that get about five 10 grand worth and then and then just stop dealing with that guy because you know you don't know if if you buy 500 bucks

or worth of dope from somebody and it's fake. You call them the next day to buy 500 more dollars. You know, you don't know. Some of these guys might have found out and are fucking pissed and trying to set you up. Yeah, that you show up and they got a gun. So you really have to be able to read people over the phone and kind of, you know,

which, but eventually when people did find out, they weren't even mad because they were, you know, they'd hold them up. These drug dealers would think they were real and then they'd go re-up with it or go shopping and spend them and they always worked so even when they found out like oh these bills were fake you've been giving me nothing but fake bills like they'd laugh because they

didn't lose any money you know what I mean right he's white boy just got me for 10 grand like more power to you you know what I mean so this one guy in particular um you know I came uh well at one point I did rent a little house I had roommates and we were staying in a house for a couple months but so at that point where's the wife at this point she's with me I mean we're traveling around you know what I mean with the kids in the hotels and shopping every I mean that was

my job was to you know basically wake up in the morning go spend money print make you know say 2,500 bucks go shopping spend it all get real money get a hotel room tape paper to to do the printing because the Bible paper's too thin so you'd have to tape it on

a regular piece of printer paper to feed it through so i'd sit there all night taping bible paper you know have a stack like this for the next morning to print them and then go shopping and it was just every day was uh you know it was like a job you know what i mean it was yeah constantly just a lucrative just a lucrative well you're making money i mean that that was the whole goal you know what i mean like you i do selling drugs doing all this stuff to make money it's like really just cut out the middleman that's that was my thinking you know what i mean if i can find the way to make legitimately good money that passed every time.

There's no point in not doing that in my eyes. So this one guy went home and he was standing in my driveway. I was going to say, the people you were clipping too are drug dealers. So even if they get caught

with the money, you know, it's not like it's not like it's fucking a little lady or anything, you know. And most drug dealers think that counterfeit, like I've had a few

that found out and I'm like, well, do you still want, then you want to start buying them from me? And that, oh, I don't fuck with, counterfeit you know that's serious and I'm like you're you're selling heroin selling heroin yeah

yeah well you know I got I got a year in the feds for counterfeit and hundreds of thousands of dollars you're you're trafficking heroin interstate with guns on you and you're worried about counterfeiting he's just he just hadn't got caught by the right people yet once you get 15 years fuck yeah all right heroin conspiracy every counterfeiter every counterfeiter I ever met in in in prison had hadn't they were always like the second or third time Like they were getting like two years, three years, you know, five years. And it's this third time he's doing it. And he got like five years.

It's like, fuck. Yeah, they say the recidivism rate of counterfeiting is higher than a heroin addict. Yeah, but listen, one of the highest recidivism rates is fraud. And that probably, they're saying that probably falls within the fraud department. Higher than drug dealers. But. I believe it. So the guy you said one time, you had moved into a place and the guy.

Yeah, I went pulled in the driveway and he was standing in my driveway. And this is a drug dealer. I've been ripping off every day for two months. And so I'm thinking like, oh, fuck. All right. This is going to be a problem. You know what I mean? But I was, I was buying the heroin through this girl that was a roommate.

So, like, I'd go up to people. Like, I was buying stuff from drug dealers. Every, all the addicts I knew, I'd be like, hey, get, you know, help me set up your drug dealer and we'll split it because that way it doesn't fall on me. So in this case, I was doing that with this girl, but we were living together. So when it fell on her, I was still there. But basically, I overheard him saying, like, I'm not mad. I just want to find out where you were getting these from.

So I, like, heard that. I just walk in the house. You know, the next day I go up to her, I'm like, give me that dude's number. So I call him and I'm like, I'm the guy you're looking for. You know what I mean? Yeah. Let's meet up and we can talk in person. So I meet up with him.

And, of course, see, all these drug dealers, when they do find out the bills. are fake that like I want two million dollars worth in a week yeah and they don't realize like I'm not just photocopying these each one you're cutting them out spraying this is labor intensive it's exactly I mean you're it takes probably 10 I mean I got it down to where I could make a $100 bill in probably 10 minutes right but still I mean you factor a million dollars worth that's going to take months of of cutting spray and you know you're paying your bill you just have to pay your bills you just have to do it yeah and in the end how are you going to move a million dollars?

Well, and that's the other thing. Like, I tried to keep everything under 10,000 because that's the other thing. I was printing the 96 series 100. So I figured it'd be kind of weird to go buy, you know, four kilos of heroin with all 96 series hundreds. You know what I mean? Right. That would kind of cause suspicion, you know what I'm right? Plus, you have to acquire the paper.

You have to acquire, I mean, it's just very labor intensively. said in my paperwork that that was the issue. I mean, obviously the paper, you know what I mean? I'd make a road trip to, say, Chattanooga, hit up four different bookstores, Walmarts, get all the Bible paper in the whole fucking city, and it'd be enough to make $100,000 worth, but, you know, then you have to make it, spend it, you know what I mean? So it was a constant, like I said, it was a job. Like, you'd go to one city, collect the Bible paper in a couple days, then spend the next couple days, you know, printing and making bills and then the next couple days shopping. So I'd go to different cities for a week at a time to, you know, pass, you know, acquire the

materials, make them and then pass them, you know. So with a guy, he wanted a million. Oh, yeah. I was like, man, doesn't work like that. I was like, you know, if you want, say, when you're going to Cleveland to re-up, you know, I'll sell you 10 grand for 2,500. You know what I mean, so he started doing that, you know, and he'd have his real cash in there, too, but he was getting a discount on his heroin because, you know, basically 10 or 15 of the $1,000 he was buying at a 25% rate, so. Right. But eventually that guy specifically was the one that set me up, and he got, so one time he was

supposed to go up to Cleveland, and I was supposed to go with him. So, like, he was going to re-up, and I was going to be. you know bus bills i would go around shopping um and i ended up getting arrested on i think it was like a failure to appear some little petty thing i went to jail like bonded out the next day but in that time i guess he just went to cleveland without me um so i i got out um and one of his uh little runner girls that was selling dope for him uh told me like she said uh you know he told me not to tell anybody but he's in jail up in Cleveland so I was like he told you not to tell anybody yeah I'm like that's a red flag you know what I mean so um and that's yeah towards

that part we ended up renting a house together as well um and he was selling though he was like the trap house with me in the back room with ventilation fans right blowing lacquer out the windows and making money um so I went to that house she she informed me ease in jail up in Cleveland. He told me not to tell you. I was like, he don't, you know. Yeah, yeah.

Well, I'm getting my stuff and getting the fuck out of here then. So, you know, we get all the, the printers, computers, ventilation fans, all this stuff, and go get a hotel room.

And, you know, there's a lot of information you find out in discovery. So, like, at the time, I was just thinking, okay, he's probably cooperating. Right, I need to be gone. I need to get out of here.

Yeah. Stop talking to him. So, like, two days later, I'm in this hotel, and he calls me. And he's like, hey, man, I got that Bible paper. Let's meet up. And I was like, no, man. Now, the first thing he should have said was, bro, I got arrested.

The first thing, that's the first thing you say is because, you know, you don't want people assuming that you're cooperating. Yeah, in the moment you don't mention that as being a major issue. Exactly. Exactly. I'm no dummy. You know what I mean? I've been doing this minute.

So basically he's like, oh, let's meet up. I got this Bible paper. And I was like, no, I was like, I'm just going to live out of hotels for a while again. I think, I think our relationship is over. You know what I mean? And he was like, why, what do you mean? You know? And I was like, first of all, you're acting fucking sketchy, bro.

Like, you got arrested. You didn't tell me. That's a, I'm like, what are you doing, bro? I'm like, even if you didn't cooperate in reality, I still don't trust you anymore. You know, we're done. So, and he gave me this story like, oh, yeah, I did get arrested. but they didn't they didn't find anything it was because he had a stolen car he bought a car with a title and ended up being stolen and I knew that like I told him he was like I bought this 2000 what was it

a 2010 charger for 500 bucks in an eight ball I'm like bro that's stolen obviously stolen he was like I've got the title it's not we're good I'm like whatever bro it's stolen I guarantee you bought it from some junkies for 500 bucks bro it's stolen so he was saying oh that car was stolen he was like you were right man that car was stolen he's like but that's that's the only reason i got arrested so i had to use that money to the money i was going to re-up with to bond out and so i couldn't re-up so i'm back in knoxville let's meet up and i was like no again i'm like bro it's not happening you know what i mean he was like well well can you he was trying to get me to get him a kilo a heroin through some other people i knew and he knows i don't like i mean i dibble and dab

with drugs, you know, but I wasn't, I'm not selling kilos on the, on the phone. He's like, get me, you know, 700 grams of heroin. Like, on the phone. I'm like, what are you doing, bro? So needless to say, I just hung up once I asked for that. I was like, man, you're out of your mind. And I specifically was like, the feds are listening. Yeah.

So I was like, you're the drug dealer. Why are you asking me for drugs? You are the drug dealer. I'm just, I'm just some junkie remembers to buy, you know, hang up the phone. And, well, sure enough, they, GPS pinged my phone to the location of where the hotel was. And just even talking to him is what led to my arrest. Nice.

So how they, so they, what happened? How they grab you? They come and knock on the door real lightly and ask you to please come outside. Well, can you, can you meet us at the, can you meet us at the station at your convenience? So I was staying in a hotel room with my wife at the time and this other, other chick, Dylan, um, who was selling drugs for these Detroit people. Um, but anyway, so they, uh, I woke up and we woke up in the morning and I was going to, you know, start printing. I think I somebody, one of the Detroit guys wanted like six grand, I think, or something. He put in like an order, so I was

going to make six grand. They went shopping, um, so that, you know, I'm in there. I start, you know, cutting paper, spraying, printing all this. My wife and Dylan leave to go shopping. that's all I know about 15 minutes later I get a knock on the door so I look through the people and it's just black somebody's put it

so my first instinct was like oh that you know the Detroit people that are selling dope out of this room somebody's probably trying to rob them or something because I was thinking the police would just kick down the door like I didn't think they put you know what I mean put a thumb over it so I was like you know away nobody's here you know what I mean

and knock again black thumb over the people look out the window and I see just the line of Knox County sheriffs I was like that's it you know what I mean so I start trying to flush flush this paper money and I didn't

at the time I was in the process of making it so it was all one-sided I hadn't glued it together yet so technically that's not illegal because you're allowed to print money as long as it's black and white well it was it 50% smaller 150% bigger black and white or one-sided so you can print money all day long as long as it's one-sided so

but they have but they have the other bills well they have yeah that the problem was the computer because all my bills had different serial numbers so each file on this computer that uh could then link me to every serial number that i produced you know what i mean right which was the evidence that it wasn't i didn't get possession of anything but they got a laptop with yeah yeah you know all the files that could link me to every every bill that I It's fun It's all those those little tiny things

That you're thinking well technically at this And technically bro You don't want to go to fucking You don't want to go to trial on technically Oh no Definitely yeah you're just You know I wouldn't go to trial with the feds

I wouldn't go to trial with the feds if I was innocent Yeah I always say Look if they came in right now The DEA arrested me right now And said hey we got you selling four fucking Kilos of Coke I'd be like Well can I get a deal

Like what? Because I know you're going to prove it. You're going to be able to prove it. If they can't prove it, they're going to get somebody to say it. That's what I'm saying. Even if I've never been seen, seen it. I know that at trial, you can prove this somehow. You already think you. That's how you got the indictment. I know I'm done. That's just the state, people don't even realize that's really where you live. Well, the feds don't, yeah, like you said, the feds don't even indict you unless they, they've got it. Yeah. You know, that's why you, like in my case, I had state charges. So, you know, knock on the door, I start flushing this paper money uh you know i put a like probably two grand in the toilet and flush

it i go to put another few thousand in the toilet and but i guess they shut the water off yeah they're so they see because like when dude asked me for that like 700 grams of heroin or whatever they were assuming there was drug task force there they were assuming like there's kilos of dope in this hotel room so there was organized crime unit drug task force Cleveland secret service knoxville secret service kpd you know so they So all these bills are just in the toilet now that won't flush. That doesn't look suspicious at all. And then they start, at that point, they start kicking the door in, which, you know, it's like steel-reinforced doors caused the, you know, a fucking panic attack because it's like, I was hoping they'd just kick it in and get it over with the rest of me.

They're sitting there boom, boom, boom, boom, you know, for like five minutes. And I don't, I mean, you're in a hotel room. What the fuck do you do, you know? Yeah, there's no back door. I just sit down, light a cigarette, wait for him to come in. And, you know, obviously they throw me down and, you know, all that. good stuff but so they arrested me on state charges for the first like three four months of criminal criminal simulation is what the state charge was until the feds could

simulation of what money criminal simulation is the charge yeah that's okay well it's basically just their generic I mean you can get criminal simulation I think it's just it's like a state charge that's generic for like fraud basically oh okay you know but yeah it was I've never heard that that's all you never heard that no listen bro I think every state has different. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But, you know, so I think the original charge was like criminal simulation over $60,000 or something.

And then, you know, three months later, you go to court, the state's going to drop your charges. Yay! Great! I already knew, you know, knew who was coming. So then, of course, they take me across the street to the federal building, served me an indictment. I always love the guys that they actually let them out. They actually, like, walk out. Make a mistake.

Yeah. Give them hope. You know, let them into the lobby. And they're free for like a good 30 seconds. And they're like, hi, I'm so-and-so from the Marshall. I already knew. They had a bond source, bond source hearing on my charges, which, you know what that is? Like, if you're, if you're going to bond out, where the money come from.

Yeah, you got to prove it's legitimate and all this, which I already knew. That gives, that's like a sign the feds are going to indict you because that basically, you can't just bond out and get out. You've got to supply the money. And then they set up a court date in a week so you can. prove it so it gives the feds a week's head start to to serve you the indictment if you do try and bond out so but that was it they let me out on pretrial for a little bit uh and sentenced me to 10 months right well you got 10 months but you would you said the actual that at some point the secret they came to you they wanted to give you more time like you initially you were

supposed to get more time but the yeah the original uh uh guidelines was I think it was like 24 to 36 or something like two to three years right um and so the secret service basically came to me uh well let's go back the the dude e that set me up right once i got arrested there he they let him go as an informant right you know what i mean and then he disappeared so he was on the run because like it's complicated but like the so the cleveland secret sir which could have been good could be good that could be good for you it's great yeah yeah fucking because now now you got to Well, now you got nobody to connect me with any of this shit, and he can't get on a stand and prove it if you were to go to trial.

Well, they got the laptop with the, I mean, the evidence was in my possession. Yeah, okay. But. It still weakens their case. Yeah, yeah. But also, like, so he went on the run. Like, basically he cooperated, got me arrested, and then he disappeared. And then, like, I guess, I was incarcerated at this point.

but I heard that maybe two, three months later, he was in Knoxville again, accidentally fired a gun in his apartment. The KPD went in there. Accidentally. I always love accidentally. The fucking idiot, man. KPD arrested him after all this.

He wanted to be an informant for KPD, Knoxville Police Department. He's a professional now. Yeah, apparently. You know, so KPD is excited, obviously. It's like a multi-kilo dealer willing to cooperate. so they let him go again. Of course, he goes on the run again.

You know, he just makes promises to the police and tries to disappear, which I don't blame him, you know, whatever. So he was on the run. So when the Secret Service came to me, they were like, listen, this guy that said you up, you're co-defendant. He was a co-conspirator on my case. They were like, he's on the run now. We're trying to get him.

So when he cooperated, the Cleveland Secret Service promised, you know, you get us this guy. We won't press charges on you for the counterfeit. He does that, but then he takes them to Knoxville. So then the Eastern District of Tennessee just indicted him. So it was just like he got a deal from the Cleveland Secret Service, but then the Knoxville Secret Service, you know. So anyway, he was a co-defendant on my case.

And, you know, the Secret Service basically said, you know, we'll give you cooperation credit if you show us how you made these bills. You know, and confirm everything he already told us, make a training video for the Secret Service. service for future agents, you know, explain, go through all the evidence and show them. Yeah, they have to be experts on bills. So the best way to be an expert is figure out exactly how these bills are being made so that you can detect them and see. So, I mean, they need that. And they wanted, you know, to know certain things to look out for and this and that. So, I mean,

the Secret Service said that the bills I was making were the best they've seen in like 25 years. Nice. So they, you know, said make a training video for future agents. agents and we'll give you cooperation credit. So that, that along with, you know, like admitting guilty, you know, what's it? Timely, timely, uh, yeah, timely, uh, admitting fault or whatever it is. Timely plea and, uh, acceptance of responsibility. Yeah. So they basically said, if you plead guilty today, we'll keep, uh, you know, plead guilty

today and make this training video, confirm everything he told us already, you know, plead guilty, we'll keep the amount under $100,000, which, avoids an enhancement because anything over a hundred thousand is an enhancement so they like it was like 96,000 whatever they kept it just under 100,000 um and uh we they wouldn't charge my wife with anything so all her charges would be dropped and you know with I knew with looking at like two to three years with the cooperation and that enhancement gone I'd only be looking at like a year so of course I fucking took that you know I think they said at that time they were like we found thousand dollars in knoxville you were still finding about 10 grand a week it's coming in through the banks

and that so you know with that time i don't know how much time i would have been looking at it probably would have been four years because that's another enhancement on this but that's four years if you plead guilty like if i know guys if you go to if you go to trial they'll start stacking the charges oh yeah yeah for sure so i mean yeah that was an offer i could not refuse you know don't charge my wife keep it at a hundred thousand now i owe a hundred thousand or 96 thousand in restitution but You know. It is what it is. It is what it is.

So, all right. And now you're out. Three years. Fed paper. Yeah, I just got out. I was in Lexington. Got out like three months ago. Currently in a sober living house in Knoxville.

What are you doing for work now? Well, I'm a printer. Nice. I'm a print shop, vinyl shop. you know uh it's called graphical warehouse you know they're they're good people there i really got lucky landing that job i was honest with them up you know in the interview i told him like i just got out of prison i was counterfeiting yeah well that's a plus for them well it's experienced yeah um i was gonna say uh i i wrote a book uh called bent about a guy that's uh he was a counterfeiting

plastic for the russian mom and same thing all his stuff was graphic designs he was always doing And he's always worked for print shops. And, you know, it's just, that's just what you like doing. I mean, I think it's tempting for people who work, you know, when you're around printers and you know graphic design. There's so many things. You know, like, if you're capable of fraudulently making, you know, birth certificates, money, anything. Your mind's going to jump to that.

I mean, yeah, it's tempting. I could use this for this. I could use this for this. For sure. You know. For sure. And the amount of money you can make is unlimited, you know, unlimited, really, if you do it right. So it's definitely tempting.

It's too. good out here. You know what I'm saying? You go to prison for a year or two and you're like, you're just like, you know, I'm fucking, what am I doing? Like, I'm not going to live like this the rest of my life. I'd rather live in a fucking somebody's spare room and be able to turn the channel when I want and have a fucking cell phone. When I was doing that, that was the most stressful time. Obviously, I think that, I mean, I'm making U-turns everywhere thinking I'm being followed. You know what I mean? I knew to see there were bolos out. There's a couple like pictures that were released on Knoxville website.

It's like, well, we're looking for this guy for passing a hundred dollar bills. You know, you're always on the run, thinking you're wanted, you know. You're living out of hotel rooms. Yeah, dealing with fucking scumbag drug dealers all the time. Right. Yeah. And in the end, when you walk back out of prison years later, where's all that money? Yeah.

Like, you don't have any of that money. Yeah. Like, it's not, it's, I mean, in my opinion, even what I was doing, it's just, it's just not fucking worth it. Plus, you owe it all back to them on top of that. And they'll strip everything from you anyway. For sure. Now you start off and, yeah, yeah, it's. bullshit. It's not the way to go. But, um, all right. I appreciate you watching the videos.

See you.