The Jordan Harbinger Show - 488: Frank Bourassa | The World’s Greatest Counterfeiter Part One

Episode Date: March 30, 2021

Frank Bourassa counterfeited and sold $250 million in fake US currency until he was nabbed in an undercover operation. Now he runs a security company and works with the police to catch other counterfeiters. What We Discuss with Frank Bourassa: How someone creates a quarter of a billion dollars in American $20 bills that not only look genuine, but feel genuine even to experts. The hours of research that Frank spent learning how to create counterfeit money that would pass most muster without immediately going to jail on his first attempt. The catalyst that drove Frank to pursue a life of crime in the first place (and has probably tempted most of us to consider it from time to time). It takes money to make money: Frank reveals the startup fees that went into his operation to literally print the perfect $20 bills en masse. How much labor actually goes into a counterfeiting project at this scale -- once you find a crew you think you can trust. And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/488 Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course! Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Coming up on the Jordan Harbinger show. Doing it good 100% of the time and never failing. Just us walking, we do miss a step, fall in a crack or something, and we're good at walking. We're practicing plenty. Even that, we screw up sometimes. If you screw up one place, even if you've been good 4,000 times for four years, it's not going to matter.

The outcomes think it'll be the same. You're going to get caught, you're going to get arrested, and then, you know, it can turn nasty. You need to avoid that 100. percent of the time. So why would you want someone risking and pulling up your notes and looking at it? There was scrutinized more a 50 than a 20, obviously. Nobody looks twice at a 20 because it's just what we use. So the more invisible, the better. Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people. We have in-depth conversations with people at the top of their game, astronauts and

entrepreneurs, spies and psychologists, even the occasional arms dealer, mafia, enforcer, or neuroscientist, and each episode turns our guest's wisdom into practical advice that you can use to build a deeper understanding of how the world works and become a better critical thinker. If you're new to the show or looking for a handy way to tell your friends about it, we now have episodes starter packs. These are collections of your favorite episodes, organized by popular topics to help new listeners get a taste of everything that we do here on the show. Just visit Jordan Harbinger.com slash start to get started or to help somebody else get started,

and of course we always appreciate that. Today on the show, a Canadian hustler becomes the greatest self-taught currency counterfeiter of all time, creating $250 million of perfect U.S. $20 bills before outfoxing a formidable international task force intent on bringing him down, only to ultimately walk free and turn his life around. A quarter of a billion dollars. How do you print a quarter of a billion dollars, get pinched by the feds, and walk out of prison after serving six weeks? Only Frank Barrassa knows. This is a man who printed his own fortune and then lost it. Or did he? Today, the incredible story of Frank Barrasca, the world's greatest counterfeiter. And if you're wondering how I managed

to book amazing guests like this, authors, thinkers, creators, and the occasional criminal every single week. It's because of my network, and I'm teaching you how to build your network for free over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. You don't need to be booking podcast guests with your network. Maybe you're trying to get a job or a raise or just get connected in a new place, new city, new town. By the way, most of the guests on the show, they subscribe to the course, they contribute to the course. Come join us. You'll be in smart company. Jordan Harbinger.com slash course is where that is. All right. Here we go with Frank Barossa. Well, one thing that I noticed about you is that you are, you're very determined to

to figure things out. I mean, we had a microphone issue last week or whatever, or earlier this week, and you were like, I'm figuring this out, I'm figuring this out. And I've heard that so many times before, but you did, you figured out all the tech, you set it all up the day before the show,

which is really impressive. So I got this, like, tiny glimpse into how hard you try to get things figured out, right? Like how hard you work to get things figured out. A lot of people don't do that. And I'm sorry, I sort of, I see a little window into how you were able to crack the code of,

forging currency. Well, yeah, because everything I choose to get involved with, then it's by choice, because I want to, you know, same as we're doing here. I'm happy to be here and excited and all that. So you have to put in whatever you need to put in for it to work, right? So if it implies, you know, figuring out some tech stuff, whatever it takes, well, you need to get done. Otherwise, you're not going anywhere. So you have to do it. There's no other way, right? No, there's no other way, exactly. How did you grow up? You know, a lot of people will think, okay, counterfeiting. You know, it could go either way.

You know, it could be street crime or it could be like, no, my dad was a lawyer and I just thought this was easier. You know, it could kind of go either way. Well, you know, it was kind of a perfect childhood. Like, there's no real story there. You know, I had the best parents in the world

are really dead. And, you know, there were both law-abiding people. I don't have any horror stories to tell, you know, when I was young, fortunately enough. So I'm really grateful for that, obviously. So it was just, you know, hardworking, legit people. And this is how I started. It's what I did too. I started, you know, I was really young with a newspaper room that I had when I was, I don't know, eight or ten or whatever. At one point, I guess, I just thought things were not moving fast enough or something. So this is why I started to notice other things around me, other people, you know, different people do different things. And I just evolved from there. But I had a really wonderful, wonderful childhood. I really did.

What was your first foray into crime? You know, obviously you don't start by counterfeiting a bunch of money. I think I said forging early, but I meant counterfeiting. Obviously, you don't start there. You start somewhere else, and it's, did you have a gateway crime, so to speak, that you worked on? Well, for a lot of people, at least, you know, I grew up in a, it's a very quiet town. It's a nice place, you know, nice people. My, so there's no major crime or violence, or you know, that.

So it's just a standard, really nice place to be in the school that I was at. This is high school. Well, there were some kids. I started noticing some of them were stealing clove and stuff like that. Well, we're talking about it and all that. Then one day it occurred to me if you got this and I want to talk to them, you know, if you got this product that you have all the time and saw of it, would you sell something to me?

You know, if I find people to sell it to me and then I'll sell it to them and then, you know, I'll make money out of it. It said, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, sure. So it kind of evolved that way. really natural. It was just me, you know, connecting the dots. And I did. And I started making money. So I said, oh, this is good. This is really good. So it was like an arbitrage of, was it stolen clothes or just, what kind of clothes are these? Yeah. Stolen clothes? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was stolen clothes. Yeah, yeah. So that wasn't my thing, you know, me directly. But there were like a bunch

of them and they were quite busy. I'd say, say, well, I'm going to find people for it. everything worked just fine. We're happy to sell. I was happy to buy. Clients were happy to buy. So it went good. I was at high school and, you know, it didn't take long. I was making more money my parents were. So I said, well, this is better. You know, now we're going somewhere. Maybe, you know, it's looking good. So these are like, they would, what, go shoplift and then get the clothes and then you'd say, hey, I know some guys who would buy these jeans or I know some guys who buy this jacket and then you sold the goods, just sort of, so you were essentially just fencing stolen goods at that point. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And we talk often and, you know, they tell me,

well, we have this, we have this, we have this, and then I'd find the people for it. And then my people, my clients, at the time, I didn't always start directing me, you know, hey, could you get this? Could you get this? You're saying, well, I said, I don't know, let me look into it. So then I'd go back to the guys and I say, listen, I have some people that'd be interested in this and this, that's something you can get or not. I say, yeah, yeah, yeah. So not so long After I started, I started coming back with lists. If you can get this, then have people for it. They say, yeah, yeah, sure, we'll tackle that.

And they did. So to bring it back and so I started, you know, coming with like pre-order type thing. So buyers were happy. They were happy to sell. It apparently was going good for them too because they kept bringing it in. So it was, it worked fine. And it evolved quickly into car stuff.

So they wanted mags and tires and stuff like that. And those people, they were kind of good. I don't know what. I'm guessing it's got to be kind of hard to get tires or stuff, but they did. They told people friends who have friends who have friends. So I knew them from school. I didn't hang out with them, but I did it from school. Well, they had other like-minded people, you know, same as them, who were doing other stuff.

So when I came back, you know, with the car stuff, they said, well, we don't, but we know people can do that. say, well, see if you can find those things and then I have people for it. And so it started to bring in other people for that type of product. So it was, you know, the spoilers and, you know, that type of thing for cars at the time. And so it sort of evolved from, you know, the clothing guys to the car guys. So then it was car stereos and, you know, speakers and amplifiers and stuff like that. So that was pretty popular. So it would sell for more.

It was more profitable. So I said, yeah, sure, sure. I'm in. I'm interested. And I had a steady flow of people I was finding because, you know, same thing I was talking about. This is what you need to do and make it worse. You need to figure out a way to get them.

So I did. So I'd bring in a steady flow of a lot of lists. So we're keeping them busy and we're happy. So it was good for everyone. So I worked well. Did you ever try your hand at like a legitimate business? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I did when I was, well, 15 or 16. In front of mine, he wasn't to cars. He was buying and selling cars and that stuff. He was a really, really close front of mine. And I didn't know anything about cars. And so he teach me how to fix cars. And then I moved on to working as a mechanic as the garage. And then I went into the garage.

I worked there for a couple of years. Then we went on to a bigger one, bigger one. And then after, you know, probably five or six years, I said the only difference between my boss at the time and me is that, you know, he's writing the check. So I could be doing that. So at 21, I bought my first. It was a gas station with, you know, a garage attached to it.

So I was, you know, servicing gas. And that was, not me, but I had, you know, people, it was a little thing, but it was going really good. And then I was fixing the cars for myself. So I was the only the same thing, but I was cutting the checks now. So what gave you the idea to try counterfeiting? You know, what was the turning point between, hey, I like tinkering with cars. This is great.

my own business to, you know what, I'm just going to print my, like, cut out the middleman, the whole job thing. I'm just going to print my own money. And what happened there? Many things happened, you know, between the garage and the counterfeiting thing, you know, in between that, well, I moved on for the garage and then I started a little factory when I was manufacturing car parts. And while I was doing that, some friends of mine that I had earlier in my life, I was working so much that I wasn't seeing a whole lot of people. I, and then so I hoped up with those friends one day and they were they were involved in the marijuana trade at the time. It wasn't illegal then. But it kind of fit right in. It was the same deal. They were growing that

stuff and they had plenty of it. So I said, you know, if I find people, clients, you know, would you sell them to me? So it was basically the same M.O. Same thing you did in high school, right? Same thing I did in high school, exactly. So I applied myself to that and it worked beautifully. So this was a segue into this next level, you know, if I'd say, illegal thing that you can do. And they were exporting some of that stuff. They were heavily involved. So I got more and more and more involved doing that.

And this was really, really, really good. But at one point, prices, you know, I've got that in for a number of years, probably four or five or six, same thing, right? It just so happens that prices starting coming down. Marijuana prices started coming down. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it started coming down. At the time when I got involved, and it was 4,000 U.S. per pound. By the time I dropped everything,

it was 1,500 Canadians. It's like, you know, maybe 11, 1,200 U.S. And so the law, it was just starting at a time, you know, kind of just starting. So law is a very slow process. It will come. It is slow, but it is steady. So it can count on it.

It's going to come. It's going to do its thing. But just take a little bit of time. But the more we went, the more complicated everything got, and the stiffered penalties went. So it got to a point where, well, it just said $1,200, let's say, U.S., all the work got to put in, and then all the risks. Now you're not facing, you know, a little couple of weeks. You're facing a longer time, you know, years. It just got too risky.

There was just no more money be made. So then this stopped being an income for everyone, really. well, we all got to this point, and most people still are to this day, actually. We all got to this point where we said, well, what are we going to do next? I said, well, I don't know. We need to find something. We need to figure something out. So I was just thinking, thinking, and this lasted for a long time.

It's lasted for a couple of years, at least. And it seems to be a dead end. But damn, was I thinking all the time? Because by that time, like I said, I had started my factory where I manufacturing car parts. Well, I worked myself to, I burnt myself out. I really did. It was working to where it was the day. I enjoyed it a lot.

But I just couldn't work anymore for a bit. And I got sent to hospital. It was horrible. A horrible time. I crashed big time. Oh, wow. You really got, I mean, if you burned out to the point where you got sent to the hospital, that's pretty bad. Oh, yeah, yeah.

No, it was beyond. And then, you know, it just did the hell out of me. this, you know, I was that with zero vitamin this and zero, and I had a lot of stuff was zero, so they kept, you know, pumping, you know, pouches of this and pouches of that, and to me, trying to get me back on, I was knocked out. It was, you know, we're talking about fasts here

quickly about it, but it was a horrible, horrible time of my life. Yeah. That made no sense to me. It happened one day. You just woke up one day, and then I just crashed. Just one day. I was shaking like a fucking leaf.

And this lasted for, you know, a long time. I kept chasing duck. I said, you got to figure out. You got to fix me up. Damn, what I have? I didn't know. And this, it dragged. It dragged.

It dragged. And so I said, well, I'm going to get my mind off a thing. So my girlfriend at the time I said, well, we're going to travel. So I spend like the next two, three years traveling. So yeah, you burned out. And then you were like, you know what? European vacation. Yeah.

Right? Let me go see some giraffes in Africa or something like that and come back. Exactly. You know, what happened when you came back? I mean, I assume you went, man, I can't keep working like this. I'm going to freaking die. What do I do? Yeah, exactly.

So being poor was not an option. So I'm going to start a new business. It was going to be the same deal. So I got to find something that, so what's it going to be? And then you fall back on the searching and thinkering and a ton of that, you know, day and day out, so all I would do. And then we meet up, the same dudes, you know, my friends, say, hey, thought of anything? Do you meet anyone?

Any good ideas that we could do? And we can partner in anything? No, we're looking to. We're looking to. It never picked up for most until now. Because the only stuff left was stuff that none of us was interested in, like the heavy stuff. You know, like cocaine and stuff like, you know, it's just not my thing. It's just totally not my world. I hate everything about that kind of thing because, you know, machine guns and stuff like that.

Just not me. You know, they meet up. up for, you know, the $50,000 transaction with like six guys with machine guns. I mean, what the fuck? But this is not my thing. This is not going to be my life. I don't want no part of it. No.

So it just goes from thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking. And then one day, for no particular reason, I was driving and thinking, and I stopped at a red light. And I don't think anything I saw anything. It's just the thinking that started paying up, I guess. It just hit me out of nowhere. You know, I'm chasing something to make money from. sell something, make something, do something.

Oh, we're not finding any of that. But I don't know. What's this moment of clarity I would call and what's it? All we do is to translate that into money. It's all we do. It's what we all do. It's what we wake up in the morning and do that. Right, right.

Okay. So you're thinking like, okay, if I'm doing something like smuggling cocaine that I don't want to do, it's all to get money. So why not just go directly to the money? Yeah, exactly. Well, because it's the unresolved. We're all after, really, for big parts, a big chunk of while we wake up, right? Yeah, so I can kind of follow that logic, right?

Like, you're thinking, okay, I got to do this thing for money. I was building, or making auto parts. It was for money. I went to the hospital. I can't do that again. I need to do something for money. Well, why don't I just literally make money? Yeah, exactly.

So I'm studying and it says this red light, and then I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes a ton of sense. Now, at this second, well, I don't know anything about that. I've never been around, you know, printing or printers or presses or any of that. So I know nothing about it. But I do know that if I need to figure it out, I will. It's still something you need to look into because, well, common knowledge is that they make it complicated for you to do that. Yeah. They don't want you to.

So I say, well, right. I'm going to do a little bit of research. You see what it implies. How many hours of research did it take you to figure out how to come? counterfeit U.S. currency. If you had to guess, I assumed you didn't track this anywhere, but if you had to guess. And ours, I have no clue, it put it in, I don't know, years. Oh, wow.

Okay. It's really tricky because here's what people don't get for the most part. There's basically two ways you can go about it. You can say, well, I'm going to go the cheap route. I'm going to get the printer, which is the wrong type of ink. It works, you know. You know, like my ink jet in the corner here. I'm going to like try and print off a couple 20s.

Exactly. Exactly. So, you know, if you got inject printer, well, you know, you just wet the ink and it smears. So it's not going to work. But laser toner, well, it cracks. If you fold it, it cracks. It doesn't work either. What it has right is the color, which is why, you know, they try to spend it at titty bars and stuff like that because it's fucking dark. Dark in there, yeah, exactly.

Yeah, so that's their ammo. So you can either go that way. So you have, you know, the wrong type of ink and everything and said, yeah, to that the wrong type of paper, and then, well, you need to find a way to spend it in dark alleyways or something because otherwise, you know, it's not going to fly. So, well, that's not good for me. Right. That's not big money, right? That's like when you counterfeit 10 grand. Exactly, exactly. Then you left, you have to hustle with that and trying to find new place, new dark places all the time. Well, it's not going to be, no. No, this is not rewarding psychologically,

mentally. It's just the money part, and it's not even there. So there's like nothing in it, me. Right. It's like high risk, low reward, no intellectual challenge for you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you have to remember, none of us had a steady stream of income at a time. You need to find something. So this was, you know, a high on the list. So if we're going to do that, it's going to be risky. Well, it needs to be worthwhile. So this wasn't worthwhile for me for sure. So I said, well, it's not going to be that. Then what do I want? Well, it's going to need to be perfect because perfect. It's perfect. you can spend, go big. Yeah, you can go big.

Okay. How did you start the process? Like, where do you even look for this sort of information to figure out, okay, like, you don't Google how to counterfeit money? Maybe you did. I don't know, but it seems like you would. Yeah, you do. You do.

I didn't know any more about it than you do. So I go to a computer and you type, you know, U.S. banknotes, security features, counterfeiting, paper, that type of thing. And the funny thing about it, and it's totally true. If you do that, you're going to hit the Secret Service website really, really soon. It just does. You're going to come across, you know, minting and printing really soon. So you go into that.

It was just public computers that were working. It was just, you know, internet cafes and stuff like that. So I didn't mind, you know, venturing to that type of thing because I couldn't get located from that. And from there, well, they explain what banknotes are about. Well, you don't give everything. They give more than you. you know, well, there's this, and there's this 20 there, and then the ink, the serial numbers are special for this, and the paper is special for that, and that type of thing.

So you come off of that, knowing more than when you came in. So it's progress, right? So you go from there, and then you start, well, all right, so they say special ink. So what was it at? I say, well, it changes color. So you type, you know, color ink that changes color. And they said, well, it's called color shifting. Okay, so you say color shifting ink.

So you figure out the different components like that. The paper, and they say, well, paper, what type of paper? Well, it says a special blend. You keep at it for a bit, and then you go nowhere. You say, well, this one's going to be trickier, obviously. So you said, well, I'm going to have to put a lot of work into this. You know, ink is all right, I guess, and, you know, the polymer is true, I guess, is okay. And then you just cut it up into its, you know, separate component, if you will.

So you need to add things of ink, different types of ink, and the polymer strip and then there's a watermark that you know nothing about that. How do that? You need to do that. Well, so you look into that watermark, how does that work? Who does that? That's the other thing. And then once you figure out all the parts that you need to

make 100% perfect, then you have your whole shopping list. Then you know, the edges of everything that you need to do. Now, most of it, you still can't do anything about it because you don't have what it takes, you don't know where to get it, but you have your shopping list at least. And then you say, all right, so, you know, if I need to tackle the ink, so I need to find suppliers. So then you start looking to suppliers for every one that is of these individual components. Well, this is what

you're doing. You're going to have to find supply. Then you tackle the paper. So if it needs to be raked, well, the paper is a huge part of it. The ton of stuff goes into the paper. And they make it every bit complicated as they can. I mean, everything is not conventional, but the right out there, it's 80% this and 20% that. It's kind of just a sum up of what it, the composition of it. But you need to dig into it because the real bank knows, well, you can put this thing on the machines. Well, there's a reason why they do go into a machine and others don't. It's not random stuff. So what does that? What causes that? You need to do that. You need to find out what it is? Why's doing that?

What do you need to buy? What's it about? So that's the other thing. And it also needs to go in the all accounting machines. All detectors, obviously. And the fake one don't go, and the real one don't do. Well, there's a difference between the two. What is it?

Why does one type go? Well, you've got to find out what it is. And then this will steer you to, you know, the very chemical composition of the real banknote paper. And so you've got to find out the chemical property. Because once again, it's not random. This one will go. This is the other one, it's not going to go. So you get to research until you find the exact recipe,

so you have the hard data on the chemical properties of it. And the thickness, because the peg note paper is made on purpose, obviously, between two standard thicknesses. So you can either go, if you buy anything anywhere. This is a little too thin, and this is a little too thick. little too thick. So if you want to go pure and perfect and, you know, hit it big, well, you can't do that. You got to find somewhere, some way, somehow to have the right thickness. I need the recipes. Obviously, I'm going to have to do my own recipe because I'm not going to find

it, you know, I'm not going to call crane, crane paper company and say, you know, can you spare a spool or something? You know, it's not going to happen, right? So you need to find a supplier for that. And you can't just call paper companies and go, hey, I need 80% paper, 20% linen paper, because what do you use that for, if not for currency, right? So like, aren't there, weren't they kind of like, hey, man, what did you say this was for again? You know, like, were people suspicious? Yeah, sure.

There was some of that. But if you're going to tackle that type of operation, well, you need to have a street smart for it, you know, a minimum at least. I don't think I had the minimum then. But, you know, you have to be aware of, you know, the basic, you know, security stuff, how it works and what you can do, what you can do, and why, and that type of thing. You're listening to The Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest, Frank Barrassa. We'll be right back.

And now back to Frank Barossa on the Jordan Harbinger show. I figure you don't call and go, okay, I need 21% linen, 79% regular, and also it's got to be this non-standard thickness. You probably say, hey, I need, like, something along the lines of 70%, 30%, and they go, oh, okay, so it doesn't match exactly, and you sound like you're not looking for too specific of a thing. And then maybe you order it instead of, yeah, this is Frank Barrassa, and I live in three rivers, I can't say it in French, Tuarevue.

Yeah, yeah. Canada. You know, you put in like a shell company and it's a stationary store, and you say, look, we're making our own cards or our own whatever, and it's got to be this kind of thickness, and I want it to be really durable and people are going to be using it for this or we're making stock certificates. What do I know?

But you have to get it like close enough that it would look and feel like real money, but not so close that the supplier of the paper goes, there's a hundred percent chance this guy's counterfeiting money and we're just falling for it. Like they have to, it has to go over their head of the supplier and then it also has to go over the head of the person who's holding the note, right? Yes, yes, exactly. Well, you describe as it's pretty good, actually. So you do, you know, the cover story is going to be your gateway in.

If it works, well, you're going to be able to talk to him and you got to have a conversation, be able to ask some questions, and you have to make it work. You have to sound like a paper guy. You can't be like, hi, I need a certain kind of paper. I work for a paper company and I don't know shit about paper or printing or ink, because they'll be like, you need this specific thing and you don't even know what, like, I don't know, tinsel strength is or whatever. Like, get out of here, man.

Exactly. So you got to factor that in. You're going to say, you know, you can't be 100% precise about it. Like you said, I guess you're saying, well, I, you know, 71% this. Like 1.8% you can't do that. You can't be, you know, this knowledgeable about what you want. You need to be vague a little bit, but you need to know your shit. And your cover story has to match that.

So, you know, me, what I did, the first once, because I didn't know it was going to end up being a paper mill. I thought there was a chance that it could be someone somewhere at. You don't know where you know. Would you know where to get that? I mean, no, of course not. I don't even know where to get any of anything like this. Yeah, but it was same for me.

So you have to call them with the right cover story. And I said, well, I'm going to be a paper supplier, a small-time paper supplier, but, you know, specialty paper supplier. And then I have, you know, this company, this client, you know, he's asking me for something that I don't have it or sell. But he's a good client, then you want something, you know, you explain, I'm going to send you, you know, there's some of the specifics that he, what you want to, you know, tell me if it brings a bell to you, if something you have, you can have, you cannot, you know, whatever it is. I'm going to send it, you know, you let me know. And then I send it to them. And then I'd go close, but not too close.

And then I'd go if there was, I don't know, let's say 20 criteria, what I want. Well, you feed him four or five. You see how that flies. well, it needs to be something like that. And he's talking about, you know, something. Watermark, is that stuff that you do? Because you're going to have to have it done, right? And you know, you do watermark?

And then he says, yeah, we have, you know, 10 models that you can change. You can choose from. You know, well, could you do custom? Well, no, we can't. So, no, we're going to work. And some of them say, yeah, yeah, sure, we can do that. But it's just going to cost you how much? And they tell you, so now you're making progress.

You know, how much this costs and that's all. The watermark's got to be tricky, right? Because, like, you need, you did $20 bills. So you don't say, hey, I need an Andrew Jackson watermark. What do you say? Like, I'm going to put my uncle Jordan on this bill and here's what he looks like. And then the guy's front, hopefully, you just hope they don't know what Andrew Jackson looks like. No, but there's, you know, if you think about it, there's a bunch of different ways where they don't know what it's about. And there's a reason why you ended up sourcing someone in Germany. Well, it could have been any number of different countries. countries most definitely like Canada or U.S. or, you know, not here because everybody knows what it is, what it looks like, what it's about. But if you go farther away, well, you don't know what's in Iraq money. You don't know of water market or any of those. You know, you know, like one or maybe two countries. You probably don't know what's on ours in Canada. No idea. I have no idea what's on Canadian money. I guarantee you that I would barely skate by looking at each United States bill and being like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Who is that a again, you know, but I've seen the bills enough where I know that one is like not, one's Ronald McDonald's. It's not Andrew Hamilton or whatever. Yeah, exactly. But if I look at Canadian, I got to tell you, the only money I would be like, I'm sure that I know what I'm looking at is probably going to be like North Korea because it probably all has like Kim Jong-il

and Kim Il-sung on the front of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In the United States, everything else, because we have that green money that's probably real easy. But anything else, when I first saw euros, the new ones, I was like, these are real, they're plastic, you know, they curl up weird, they got holograms all over them. Yeah. I do. I'm curious though, why did you choose to make $20 bills instead of $50 or $100 bills, right? Because theoretically, $100 bill is worth five times as much.

Is it like a 20s are just so low that nobody, nobody draws on them? No one's holding the 20 up to the light. You know, is that the logic here? Yeah, that's really it's because the hardest part. So it's like doing anything else, any trade, anything, any job, doing it good. is somewhat easy, doing it good 100% of the time and never failing. This is stuff. Even the time, just just walking.

You know, sometimes we do miss a step, you know, every year's 10 years, you know, we just, I don't know, just something, you know, we fall in a crack or something and just we just tear something. You know, from time to time it happened. We're good at walking. We're practicing plenty. Even that, we screw up sometimes. Well, when we tackle a project like that, if you screw up,

one place, even if you've been good 4,000 times for four years, it's not going to matter. The outcomes think it'll be the same. You're going to get caught, you're going to get arrested, and then, you know, it can turn nasty. You need to avoid that 100% of the time. So why would you want someone risking and pulling up your notes and looking at it? There was scrutinized more a 50 than a 20, obviously. Nobody looks twice at a 20 because this is just what we use. and this is what you want.

You want to be invisible. You don't want anything of it to show. I don't want to bring attention to you nor to your future clients because they need to be able to spend it. So the more invisible, the better. This is why it needs to be. That makes sense, right?

You know, look, I don't know anything about counterfeiting other than what you've told me here, but counterfeiting to me seems like it would be really easy to make bad counterfeit bills, but it would be extremely difficult to make good counterfeit bills, right? Like you either have really crappy ones where people go, all right, I mean, I guess it looks like a bill, but it's like the ink is too dark, the paper's too thin, it's like it shreds too easily, I can tear it really easily, it's a little bit blurry,

but then the good ones are like a hundred times harder to make, right? They're not twice as hard to make. They're not five times harder to make. They're a hundred times harder to make. So everybody, like 99% of fakes are somewhere in the bottom, you know, bit. The first part of the spectrum where you just go, okay, in the dark at a strip club, it's a real $5 bill or a real $100 bill. But as soon as somebody busts out the marker or it looks at it in the light, you just go, this is garbage. Like, what the hell is this?

But you're talking about, like, you wanted it to be, you knew the risk was high. So you went, okay, we're not screwing around with any of this crap. we're either going really, really high end or we're not doing this because I don't want to go to prison for 50 years for making 50 grand. Exactly. And certainly this is a big part of it. But there's also that it costs me, you know, the setup, because you have to have a bill that full-fledged print shop with everything that it implies.

So it costs me 320, which was every penny I had left. $320,000? Yeah, yeah. I didn't have a penny left. So as gambling, everything I have on it. So if I get caught for any reason, well, I'm going to go to jail, I'm going to lose it. It's horrible. You don't want to do that.

You really don't. Right. And then good luck. Good luck selling that shit on eBay. Like, who needs an offset printer? Like no one, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. So you say, well, if I don't want it that wise, I'm going to need to, you have a lot to lose.

You know, your liberty and all I had, like I said, money wise. So if you want to go with it right, well, you need printing presses. I don't know anything about printing presses anymore than YouTube. So how do we print press? I'm going to have to buy one. What's a good one? What's a bad one? Well, they sell used one.

Well, anything used. You have to check it out. You have to, well, why do I know if it's good or if it's not good? I have no clue. You wouldn't. Nope. Right, yeah. Who's going to know that?

Who's going to know that? And it makes a ton of difference. So you have to find someone who can actually inspect those. You got to find where the sales is the other. you're going to find someone who can inspect those. And once again, so make a cover story where, you know, he's going to come with you without knowing who you are. I think to match up with other people going to send for you so that it doesn't lead to you. Then it starts right there already.

And until you find a good one. And I'm really summarizing here because it's so complicated. Like for me, I had 14 presses inspected before he said, well, this one. Yeah, this one, this one is fucking good. This one is perfect. This one works. Good. So we got this one.

And when you got this one, well, you just need to rebuild it. And then it's going to be perfect. So, well, you said, well, you said it was... Just rebuild it. Yeah. Just rebuild it. No problem, right? Yeah.

So you need to buy bearings and rolls and this. Well, where do you buy that? I don't know. So now you need mechanics because you want it pristine because you want it, you know, chop, not. All presses are really old, unless you buy new ones, but it costs you like one million, and just put a press? Yeah, because they don't make them,

they don't just have these in the Amazon warehouse, right? Like, these are made to order presses, I assume. Because no one's buying these. No, they weigh like, you know, 40,000 pounds. They're industrial presses. That's wild.

And then after you don't know all this, then you shall have little details when you need to operate them. You're going to call Bob and say, hey, Bob, do you want to come money for, because he's going to tell anyone, you know, what's the upside of him knowing about it? Well, yeah.

You don't want that? No kidding. Well, we'll get there in a second. I'm curious how you picked your crew, but I'll get there in a second. First, I want to know, when you were making all these calls and you're trying to get this to work and you're trying to get that to work and you're trying to get the paper and you're trying to get the watermark and you're trying to get the press, when your equipment and paper finally arrived and you're looking at these sheets of paper and they feel like fresh money, what were you feeling in that moment?

Like when you're like, you bring it back to what, your garage and you're just like, holy shit, I've got a sheet of blank money, essentially, or money to be. Yeah, money to be. It was a print shop that I built on a farm building. Everything's complicated because you don't want it to lead to you or anything like. Is it still any fuck up? It's always the same deal. You end up luck and it's like which you don't want.

You're trying to avoid, right? So the print shop built in a farm building. And so you have to build all of that. You have to send equipment over there. And so this is where I had the, we're skipping over a lot, but when the paper got to here, this is when it was sent at that place. And when it was sent, while the paper comes in,

it's got a bunch of the security feature. A lot of them are embedded in the paper already. Plus, the fact that the composition itself is very specific. So this is done. The security features, they need to be in it, chemical properties, all that, watermarks already in there. So you have a big chunk of what, It's important, already done, ready made.

And then you bring it in. By the time when I did bring it in, and then I slammed the door shut, I was confident enough that everything I did opt to that. I hadn't done any mistakes. So it was good to go. I had like 12 pallets of paper or so. 12 pallets of paper. How many, do you know, any idea how many sheets of paper that was by any chance?

You have to divide $150 million by $80. dollars and then that'll give you uh i'll do that right now okay so hold on one second 250 million divided by 80 dollars 3.125 million does that sound right yes yes because uh oh that's how many notes you had yeah so it'd be 300 million so so that works because it was 80 so 3 million at 80 it's uh 240 million so yeah it was right about that it was a ton yeah i mean literally right i mean i assume they shipped this in this isn't coming via uPS FedEx, DHS, Canada Post. This is like...

No, no, no. This is cargo. Cargo ship. Yeah, this is a big metal container coming from, I don't know, where'd you order it from Germany or something? Like Switzerland or something like that? Yeah, Germany.

So when you went to pick that up and you looked at that, like, what were you feeling? You must have been fucking stoked, man, because you knew you were going to put $20 bills all over all of that and then just never work again. Yes, yes. When it arrived here, I wasn't a one... I sent someone to pick it up.

It was his job. It was what he was paid for. Like a runner or something. It was his task. You know, this guy selected for it. So you went over there. And then, you know, we left from the port. And then it was a whole setup that I had planned to make sure when followed or tracked and all that.

Because, you know, pallets can be rigged. You can plant, you know, a bug in there and, you know, a GPS tracker. You don't know. They're certainly going to tell you. So you need to every step in their way. So you need. So I had the truck drive off the port and then, you know, you can be followed so you got to try to block that. So I had another one of my guy following with a separate car and I had picked out this specific route and going into,

there was an entrance to the highway where it narrowed down to one lane that I had picked that place specifically for it. And the next guy was where my guy was following by the car. His job was to stall the car there for 15 minutes, 20 minutes. Like just turn off his car in the middle of the one lane bottle. Yeah, turn off right like it's stalled, like it broke on you or anything. So it's just a one lane thing. So then the truck can leave. And anyone who might have been following, you don't know,

well, they can't because it's fucking blocked. So that gets rid of any possible someone following. So you have left helicopters and electronic surveillance, which you need to tackle. So helicopters, you kind of look. up and you like to think you pay attention enough. You look, you say, well, I'm not seeing anything or you? No, I'm not. So you keep really looking for that. And then there's still the electronic surveillance. So if there's a bug, you need to address that. So I had it sent to a

parking lot and then they stood there for three days. And then we just kept surveillance on it, just in case, you know, see someone would come and sneak around. Not that he would, but you just think, well, if it's sitting there, you know, we'd just keep eyes on it, you know, for three days and see. nothing happened. So from there, after my guy went back and got the same truck, he drove from there to a separate parking lot, which was closer to my city here. And we did the same thing. And we didn't see anything, you know, would stand out. So he seemed good. And so I got an other truck who came in, you know, and they back to back. And from then, with new pallets in it. So all the boxes were all opened every one of them to see if there was any trackers or box into it. And all the

pallets were left in that truck. And all the boxes were transferred on new pallets in the new truck. Because, you know, they could hollow out, you know, one of the legs, when it puts up to you know, and also it takes only that. We transferred everything, put it in a separate truck. And then from there, he drove directly to my print show. This is the Jordan Harbinger show with our guest Frank Barossa. We'll be right back. Thanks so much for listening to this show. Your support of the advertisers is what helps keep us going. And of course, I love hearing from you.

To learn more about all the advertisers, you don't have to write down the codes of those little URLs or anything. We put them all on one page. That page is Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support us. All of our sponsors are there. All of our discount, deal, whatever links are there. Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals.

And don't forget, we've got worksheets for today's episode. If you want some of the drills and exercises talked about during the show, in one easy place. That link is, of course, in the show notes at Jordan Harbinger.com slash podcast. Now, back to our conversation with Frank Barossa. That's some spy shit, man. Like new pallets, park the truck, surveil the truck, then park the truck again, surveil the truck again.

There must have been a part of you that's thinking, okay, they might know. Like 50-50 or, I don't know, 80-20 chance that they know that this is going to be misused or they're not even sure it's going to be misused, but they're suspicious. so maybe they'll just take a look at it. And then once they see you sort of doing counter surveillance, they're going to know. But you have to, so you have to, you can't just not do counter surveillance.

You have to. So you have to do it so well that if they are surveilling you, then you can bug out. What was the plan if you found like a little electronic device in a palette or, you know, they were following you? Like, were you just going to ditch the truck? Like, did you have a backup plan to say like, no, I'm making greeting cards for old lady's birthdays?

You know, did you have something that, you were going to fall back on? No, because if you get suspected, you know, in any way, let's say you're done. You can tell them whatever you want. They're not dummies. I mean, the authorities who investigate you for that. This is as high as it goes. This is the stuff of the line. So you can tell them all they want, but then I'm moron. Right. But then at that point, you haven't really committed any crime, right? Like you haven't made any fake money. You can just say, eh, I ordered some stuff. Yes. I'll take probation. Yes. Yeah. At that point, I'm sure, I'm sure you're not having to, nothing would happen to you.

It's not money yet. Right. You're still fucked. There's still nothing you can do with it. You're going to have to go back to it at one point. So by the time you figure out there's a bug to it, well, you know the surveillance on it. So there's somewhere they're looking at you. They know who you are.

You're done. That's the end of you. So you can't do that. Whatever, wherever we're going to go, you're going to follow you. And then that's it. You're done. That makes sense. So you didn't run the operation alone, obviously.

But how did you know who you could trust? You know, there's different jobs from what you're. it sounds like in the business. There's like you're the designer, maybe the printer, there's runners, you know, you've got to have a larger crew to move the bills around. How did you know who to trust?

How did you pick your crew? Well, it was all people that I knew from other stuff that I dealt with when I was, you know, younger. So people I knew who were doing illegal businesses, you know, the friends that I mentioned earlier. And those, you know, I know them a long time and whenever you do any type of that stuff,

well, you're going to get arrested from time to time for whatever reason. And, well, you see what happens when any of them do get arrested. Do you see how they handle that? You know, do they rat you out? Do they rat anyone out? How did they go about it?

And so my people, my crew, well, the people that I knew for a long time. And they all been in this system one way or another. They're solid. We all know one and out. So they were, they were my crew. It's hard to explain shortly, but you need to isolate yourself as much as possible. This is what you try to do.

You know, the likelihood of getting caught is high because this is not a grocery store. So by design, there are people specifically looking for you all the time. This is all they do. They try to stop people like this is the game. So you have to know that going in. So you have to insulate yourself from any. operation that's happening. So if you want to, you know, rent cars, because you can't drive anywhere, you own cars, because the cameras everywhere and on the highways and, you know, overpasses

and the cameras everywhere. So you have to rent cars. Well, in those businesses, there are cameras too, so you have to send someone. Well, if you send someone, this someone knows it's you sent him. Well, if anything happens, it's going to have you out because most people is what they do. So the guy doing the actual renting for a car, for example, you know, which happens to hundreds of times. You can't. You cannot. know where it's going, who it's for, and that's up. You cannot know. So I had my close circles or my people, my friends, my, the only people that rely on. Well, them, I paid them, because I trust their judgment. They're my people. So I was paying them to hire somebody that

they deem trustworthy, and then they hire him. And then his job is to hire yet another guy, a third guy. And this third guy is going to go do the actual renting. So he knows. He knows. who hired him because it's the one up from him and he knows he needs to go, you know, buy a car and do a different name or this and that. So he's over there. He's not doing anything illegal. It's just for the car. But he's over there. You know, there's the cameras or this. So something were to happen with the car. Well, they might come knock on your door, which is why, you know, you're paying, you know, X for that job. So if you're in, good, if you're not in, you know, it's all right. So it's like, no, no, no, sure, sure.

So if he get busted for anything or something happens to the car, and then they take license plate, and then this leads to the rental place, well, they're going to check out who rented this. It's going to be this dude. So even if he tries to rat you out, the only one he can give is the one step up. Right. This dude didn't do anything. So it's unlikely he's going to rent you out, even if he does. The only one he can give up is my guy, my close guy.

He didn't do shit, and he's solid. So it cannot go all the way up to me. That makes sense. Which is why you try to do. You try to keep it like that, yeah. So everything I did, I did it like that. We're a three-tier thing for everything. So the mechanics for the press was the same thing.

Everything was that way, everything. So you have to have a constant flow of guy who do tiny parts as little as possible. You know, you need to tell them the real stuff, because you need to be legit with people if you're not, well, if you try to fuck them, something happens, you're going to try to fuck you for sure. You can't do that. Sure.

So you can keep one for a little bit, but if you keep him for too long, well, if anything happens, well, he knows a lot. So you can screw up the whole thing. So you keep them, you know, for one-up, but you're going to do, you know, car rental. So you have them do, you know, you can have them do a number of them, you know,

like 10, 20 times. And then, you know, that's it. That's enough for you. Right. You get a new one. You get like that for everything. know, just a little bit. Right. So all anyone can say is, I rented like 10 cars for this guy who then knows this guy, who then knows Frank. But that's all I got. I just rented a car 10 times.

I don't know what they did with the car. No. And he doesn't know you and he doesn't know the guy next to you. Right. He doesn't know who knows you. No, no, no, no. I know every time I need to know everyone down to last dude. When the last guy tells me when I'm going to hire this dude, I'm going to look him up to, you know, see that feel good about him. I know everyone, everything, I know everything about everything, 100% of the time. But the reverse is totally not the case. The only thing he knows is who hired him and what he whispered to do. He doesn't know who is for, doesn't know who's above him. So he knows one guy, the one who hired him, and he knows it's to rent cars. So he only can say, well, I rented cars here, you know, 20 times. And if he

wants to rat out, well, this dude sent me. That's it. It's the instead of what he knows. So the connection to you is basically zero. So that, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is really what you try to maintain all the time. You know, if you do, well, the better your chances, obviously. How long does it take to print $250 million? Five months. Five months. Like nonstop working five months, basically? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What were your hours like? What, you know, where you working like, I assume when you're printing that much money,

you're probably working every waking moment of your life at that point. We'd work at night because you want to be invisible. So we'd go in after everyone stop working. So it's dark out. You know, night is a constant because you're less visible at night, obviously. So you don't want to be visible. So anywhere you go, you see better at night. You try to do as much possible during night.

So we'd go in when it was getting dark. And then we stopped working just before it was a daybreak. And then we leave. So it was like that every day. It's like 12 hours a day or so? Maybe 10. 10? Okay.

Because it's a long time. Because I'm thinking even if this machine is just spitting money out and you're refilling it with ink and all that stuff here and there, $250 bills, that's a lot of $20 bills. And so I did some nerd math here, right? $1 million in $20 bills. is about 50 kilos or about, I don't know, like 120 pounds, okay? So $250 million is $12,500 kilos or an unbelievable 27,557 pounds. That doesn't even mean anything to me because that number is so huge.

So that is over eight Toyota Camrys or six Ford F-150s. So that is multiple metric shit tons of cash. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where do you even put all that? I mean, you can't just, that's not like a, even if you have a walk-in closet, it's not in the walk-in closet. Like, this is a truckload of cash, literally. Yeah. You know, this is what you're going to have to protect all the lead just because it's, you know, your product you have to sell.

Yeah. But also anyone investigating, because at some point, it's likely that for whatever reason, some things got to go. Yeah. Any client, do you sell it to? Well, they might get busted for any number of reasons. and you don't know a lot of what's happening. Once it's out of your hand, well, you're not controlling anything.

So from the time you sell the first one, an investigation could start right then and there. So I printed everything before I even sold the first one. Because if you don't sell anything, well, you're not at risk. I haven't done anything. By the time you sell the first one, the first one might end up being, you know,

like it ended up being for me, like another undercover agent somewhere somehow. So I printed everything and then it started selling. And you know, whatever investigation may start, what you're going to want is the money and where you made it. They get those two things. That's the end of you. You're going to be sitting next to the Alchapel in somewhere, you know, in federal. For the rest of the end.

It's it. You're done. What I did, I got into my printing shop. The money stayed there and had to get some of it out because, you know, I want to sell in the client. So you want to split it. So if anything happens, well, just that part of, you know, if you're lucky, the only part of the operation is going to get busted and maybe you can keep going with the rest. So it's why you hope for, right?

So I split into five different stashes. So you get a bit of it out and then you got runners and then each of the runners, they know about one place. So you minimize, you know, the risk of you, you know, getting anything horrible happening because it's just one fifth of whatever you got out. Right. The rest is not moving. So you don't want to drive around with it.

You don't do anything because anything happened. Well, they get the money, get a test. That's the end of you. It's always, you know, the thing you need to protect yourself from. So I left it right there at the shop. It didn't move from there at all. Wow. What kind of lock is on that container that has like $50, $250 million in it?

Well, it wasn't in a container. It was my print shop. So it was just sitting there? Like, I'm trying to envision this. It's just like you go to the bathroom and you're like, Don't use that bathroom. That's floor to ceiling $20 bills. You know, like go to the other one upstairs.

The Paymergate came in boxes. Well, we did. You know, we put them back in boxes, and then we stacked them up on pallets. And we just pallets of boxes, just that the pallets were full of cash. Have you ever seen the movie Blow? You ever see Blow with Johnny Depp?

And the guy's like carrying the box. And he's like, where do I put this? And he's like, there's no room back here. He's like, no, no, no, no. Back there, back there. And he's like, ah. He's like stepping over everything. And he's putting down this.

giant bankers box full of money, and it's all stacked up, and you just think, like, how much freaking money is that? It was like $60 million, and you had like five times or four times that much money. Yeah. It's a shitload of money. And it's true that there are weird situations that do have. In fact, because, you know, you print everything, and the presses, it will spew out money. It's a sheet of second. Oh, wow. That's so fast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's all the does, you know, it's industrial equipment. It's what's made to do. It will replicate it perfectly every time with pixel on pixel. It does a great job is what you want, right? But it just tax it up on trolleys and then you have to empty them and put fresh new ones

because it just be printing. Well, then a lot of finishing needs to be done. It needs to add other stuff and serial numbers and they need to be cut and then it needs to be counted. So you need to have rows of counting machine, but even counting machine, you know, if you ever use any of them, but, well, it screws up. You put that, you just put a little stack of 2000. You put it in there, well, it jams all, you know, so quite a bit of time. This is such a funny, high-quality problem, right? Like, you're like, ugh, my machines that I'm putting thousands of dollars in, they're jamming,

and it's like, it says it's $1,000, but it's $2,000. Yeah. What a hassle. And you got these, like, stacks, you know, that's tall as you, and you're like, I got to print serial numbers on these things, and I got to put the foil on or whatever. and you're just like, oh, man, these weigh so much as you're pushing like, you know, $300,000, you're like, oh, my back kind of hurts. I'm just envisioning this ridiculous scenario, which are like, I'm tired, but you just made a million dollars, you know, more.

Yeah, you know, work-wise, it's exactly what it looks like. You know, this is not, you know, clubs and glory and this is that. It's just, it's factory work. It's just grinding. And it's all you're doing. And then you got hydraulic jiggers, you know, to move that around because it weighs a ton. And then you say, well, I got to. cut this. So you have like, you know, three pallets worth to cut, you know, really precisely.

So it's just, you know, cutting, cutting, cutting, cutting, it's just cutting, you know, palettes after palettes. Then you got to count the fucking thing. So you got to split it into stagnating and get to just watch it count it. And then you got to strap them because they need to be bundled up. It's so funny. So there's a lot of the actual, you know, kind of, you know, what they depicted in the movie where you say, well, you know, how much is there and how much is that weight? You know, well, it didn't weigh yet, but there are. times where you load up boxes and then you, you know, sure, oftentimes you lose count. Because, you know, you want to make boxes one million.

So you lose count and say, well, damn, where are we at, you know, at 820? Was that 820? Was it, you know, 840? Was that, like, fuck. So you need to fucking, you know, turn it upside down and starting. And so there was a lot of other bitches by the nature, I think. So, yeah, there's a lot of, there's a lot of it. And then.

Manual labor, man. It's funny because, like, people think, like, oh, if I had this job, it was, would never feel like work. And here's this guy printing like $1.3 million a night. And you're just like, oh, man, I need a vacation. Like, I got to take a break. This is grueling. Yeah.

Yes, it is. It is. Everything is automated. So if anything clogs up or, you know, for whatever reason, one color fucks up on all, all the four colors are lined up, you know. So it goes in white, it comes out, you know, everything pretty. Hey, the color fucks up. Well, it's going to keep on going.

It's not one a second, flu, flu, flu, flu, flu, flu, so every fuck up, oh, it's going to end up being, you know, bad. So you're constantly watching everything because you don't want that to happen. And then, you know, there are a bunch of different things. They're electronic. They're like digital color readers. They'll tell you because you have actual data on the color it needs to be. And that with a digital reader, as they come out, and not really quite often, actually,

while you test the colors on it, every place you want to make sure that you don't need to tweak anything or just because you want to, you know, be dead off. So you're always doing that. It's just tedious work. It's just, it really is grinding. It's grainy. And if you cut a quarter inch too short,

and then, you know, you set up, and then you just run it, well, you just trash after that stuff. Right, you end up with a bunch of money that, the right side of it's cut off or something, and you can't do shit with that. Exactly. So you got to make sure that back, because if you run the whole author,

then it's just trash. Right. You're constantly watching, waiting, printing, feeding. So it's tedious work. It really is. But you got to put your head to it because it's going to cost you a lot, you know, if you don't. Did you listen to any music while you were? Because it seems like a project like printing a quarter of a billion dollars in counterfeit U.S. currency needs some kind of a soundtrack.

And I'm wondering if you guys played music or was everybody focused or was everybody listened to their own stuff. You know, I'm just curious here. I would have to pass the time listening to something. I do listen to music a ton. But when you're doing your printing, you can't do that because those machines are loud. And you have a bunch of that work in. After the printing press, you have other presses that you need to for, you need embossing, you need cutting, you need foiling.

So those are all different places. You got a bunch of presses running at a st. I tell. It's loud in there. Okay. Plus you focus through your really work modes. And just pay attention, check, measure, double check, verify. It's all you do.

And then load, unload, load, unload, refill, ink. It's really factory work. I've got some thoughts on this episode. But before I get into that, Ray Dalio began investing at age 12 and now has over $160 billion under management at his company, Bridgewater Associates, the largest and best-performing hedge fund in the world. It's no surprise that he's known as the Steve Jobs of investing. Here's a preview.

I think now it's very clear that this is a... an event that has happened before, but not during our lifetime. Of course it is. The last one that happened was in 1918, and it happened right at the end of World War I. Today, how many pandemics, wars, depressions, revolutions, and so on, have we been through, and they happen over and over again for the same reasons. Three big things that are happening now, that haven't happened in our lifetimes before, but happened in the 1930 to 45 period.

First, a long-term debt cycle that turns to the point where central banks can no longer ease monetary policy. And so we're at the end of a long-term debt cycle in which there has to be a lot of printing of money, much like in March 1933. Three, two, there are wealth and opportunity gaps and values gaps, which are very large. And those are the sort of things that produce some form of revolutionary changes. Three, there's a rising power that is comparable to the existing world power that is challenging it. The United States now with China. So when we look at the world, we have three big topics that we need to talk about, and they're very big and important to understand.

The capacity of humans to adapt and change and do things is enormous, but the likelihood of being able to work in an intelligent, cooperative way to do the right things would have to be considered a long. shot. For more with Ray Dalio, including the predictable cycles that contribute to the rise and fall of great and once great nations on the world stage, and where Ray sees these cycles heading now and how we should prepare ourselves for the less comfortable cycles we're bound to experience in the future, check out episode 389 of the Jordan Harbinger show. All right, y'all remember, this is a two-parter. This is the end of part one. Part two will be out in just a few days. Probably already is, depending on when you're listening to this. Links to everything we discuss on the show is always in the show notes, worksheets in the show notes,

In the transcripts in the show notes, there's a video of the interview on our YouTube at Jordan Harbinger.com slash YouTube. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also hit me on LinkedIn. I'm teaching you how to connect with great people and manage relationships using the same system, software, tiny habits that I use. That's our six-minute networking course. It's a free course. I don't need your credit card. None of that crap. Just go to Jordan Harbinger.com slash course and learn how to dig the well before you get thirsty. Many of the guests on the show subscribe to the course and contribute to the course, so come join us. You'll be in smart company. This show is created in association with Podcast One. My amazing team is Jen Harbinger, Jay

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