It is seen quite often that counterfeiters get caught. Apart from the serial numbers what is it that the counterfeiters cannot reproduce about a bill?
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Lets look at US bills, as it’s the one I’m most familiar with. First is the material, which is a specially made cotton blend with red and blue fibers mixed throughout. Its made by only one company, and is illegal for anyone else to buy or sell. It also reacts to counterfeit detection pens, while most other fabrics and papers wont react the same way.
The there’s the artwork itself. Bills are stamped with extremely detailed metal dies that produces a crisp image on the bill. Under a microscope, or even close inspection, printers can’t compete with this level of detail. What looks like a line to the naked eye is actually text in certain places on the bill.
Next are the holographic inks, which are hard to get right, and change based on the angle the light hits the bill. Additionally, the bills have UV florescent stripes on them the can only be seen under blacklight.
All of these measures are beatable, but to produce a counterfeit bill that beats all these tests might cost more than the bill is worth, defeating the whole purpose. Older bills that don’t have all these security methods are out there, but as time drags on, and those bills become less common, they become more suspicious. If someone hands a bank teller a crisp 20 year old bill, its going to set off alarm bells in that tellers head, causing them to scrutinise the bill even more.
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