Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - He Made $250M in Counterfeit Money and Got Away with It - The Frank Bourassa story

Episode Date: February 3, 2025

This is the story of Frank Bourassa, the Canadian man who printed $250,000,000 in counterfeit money.

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If you're 45 or older and at average risk, ask your health care provider about the KoloGard test. KoloGuard is available by prescription only. Learn more or request a prescription today at kolaGar.com slash screen. This is your fix. I'm your host, Stasi Schroeder. Welcome to Tell Me Lies, the official podcast. What's the most unhinged thing of season three?

Stephen, because he's so evil. I do think he is misunderstood. You see everyone base consequences. It's intoxicating. The writers just know how to trick you. There's always a twist in this show. Tell Me Lies, the official podcast, January 6th, and stream the new season of Tell Me Lies, January 13, on Hulu, and Hulu on

Disney Plus. So this guy, his name's Frank, and Frank is about to make $250 million. So Frank lives in Quebec, where he owns a small factory that makes brake pads, and dude is just tired of working. So one day he sells his brake pad business and basically says, fuck this, there has got to be an easier way to make money. And that is when he decides, why don't I just make money myself? Like literally, just make the money. and print it myself. And so Frank, he starts reading up on how to print money. And he chooses the US dollar because it's a good exchange rate and it's used in a lot of countries.

And he spends the next year and a half studying and learning everything he can about the dollar. And he goes on government websites to find out the exact kind of paper it's printed on and what the specific security measures are. And then using a fake email address, he reaches out to a bunch of paper mills across Europe. Because you need a specific kind of paper to print money on. And then finally, he finds a paper mill in Germany that has it. And he gives them a bullshit story and they agree to provide the paper to him. And once this order is finally printed, it'll be the equivalent of $250 million. But Frank, he doesn't plan on spending this fake money.

No, no, that would be too risky. Instead, he's going to sell the bills to other people at 30% of their face value. Which means when all is said and done, he'll make $80 million from this crime. So Frank sets up a print shop on the outer edge of town. And he's got all the special printing equipment and software. And when that paper finally arrives, Frank works hard to print the fake bills as fast as possible. Because he's a clever guy and he doesn't want to be caught with any evidence. And five months later, he's finally done printing.

And Frank has all $250 million in counterfeit $20 bills printed out. Now all he has to do is find some buyers. So Frank, he lines up four potential buyers outside the U.S., and they start putting orders in. And soon he's really moving this money, a million dollars at a time. Dude is just slanging these fake bills. And so a few years pass, and Frank is still selling fake money. And at this point, of his $250 million, he's allegedly sold about $50 million worth, which leaves about $200 million he still needs to sell.

And so he decides it's time to expand. his clientele and start selling to a new group of buyers. Here's the thing about this new group of buyers though. This new group has actually been infiltrated by an undercover agent. And so one day Frank is out driving and he's gonna meet a middleman to deliver $100,000 in counterfeit cash. But what Frank doesn't realize is that a police helicopter is way up in the sky following him, surveilling him, hoping to see who he drops this money off to.

And soon after that, Frank, he's staying at his girlfriend's house one night, and he's asleep. And then, around 5 a.m., they hear banging on the front door. And he answers it, and it's the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and a couple of U.S. Secret Service officers. And bam, they arrest Frank, and they search the house and his car, and they find a printing press and $949,000 of the fake money. So they throw Frank in jail, and he waits there for his story. trial. Now, Frank is in Canada, so he's sitting there in jail thinking, ah, they're going to be

chill about this. Canadian laws are no big deal. I'm not going to be in jail for very long, but the U.S. Secret Service makes sure to let him know that in the U.S., this actually is a big deal, and that they want to extradite him there where he'll be facing up to 60 years in prison. And Frank is like, oh shit. Now, Frank actually has a lawyer, a really good lawyer. And this lawyer, argues to the court that when the police helicopter was following him to the buyer's house that day and they were surveilling him they didn't actually get Frank on camera carrying the counterfeit money and handing it to the buyer which he's right they didn't get him on camera doing that and therefore

because they didn't get Frank on camera committing the crime the search warrant they used to search his girlfriend's house was unlawful that's what the lawyer is arguing and the court actually agrees and And then they suspend Frank's extradition to the U.S. And about six weeks later, they let him out of jail, while Canadian police try and gather more evidence against him. Once they inevitably get that evidence, Frank is going to be going to prison for a long time. Until.

Frank's court date eventually comes, and while he's walking into court, he's like nervous as shit. And he didn't get extradited to the U.S., but Canadian prosecutors are still going to try and put him in prison. And so he turns to his lawyer and he's like, you know, there's still 200 million fake dollars out there that I still have hidden that police never found. And they decide, hey, let's use that as leverage. And then Frank will offer to show them where that money is if they offer to give him a lighter sentence. Because the government, they just want to make sure that none of this fake money ever hits the streets. Like it's very important to that. They can't have

$200 million in fake money circulating around. In theory, that can bring down the value of real money, all kinds of stuff. So, after some negotiating, Frank and his lawyer finally reach an agreement with prosecution. In exchange for him telling them where the $200 million in counterfeit money is, they will let him go free. And so, Frank leads the police directly to where he had been secretly keeping that fake $200 million, which was in, and I'm not making this up, the back of a box truck parked in a hotel parking lot. And so police, they seize the money and they release Frank and he goes free. So after all that, after printing $250 million in counterfeit bills, he only spent a total of six weeks in jail.

Shout out to Quebec.