The U.S. dollar is perhaps the most recognized in the world, accepted nearly everywhere and viewed as one of the most reliable, stable currencies of a

How the crime of counterfeiting is making a comeback

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2024-05-01 00:00:04

The U.S. dollar is perhaps the most recognized in the world, accepted nearly everywhere and viewed as one of the most reliable, stable currencies of any nation. Which is why, at a time when consumers swipe or tap a card to pay for most anything, the U.S. Secret Service reported that they seized nearly 22 million dollars in counterfeit cash last year.

Counterfeiting is a crime that has existed for millennia, but it really came to the fore in the U.S. during the Civil War, when both the Union and Confederate governments, in an attempt to subvert the other, counterfeited each other's currency. By the war's end, nearly one-third of all currency circulating the U.S. was counterfeit, undermining a recovering economy where physical currency was what most used to do business.

The U.S. Secret Service was born out of the need to thwart that rampant counterfeiting and restore the population's trust in the nation's financial system. That task has become more challenging with the advent of cybercurrencies like Bitcoin, digital currencies, peer-to-peer payment methods like PayPal and Venmo, and more. Criminals and crimes adapt to the times, and, as much as payment methods have increased, so too have the ways to defraud consumers. Cryptocurrency-related crimes grew over 53% in 2023, according the FBI's Internet Crime Report, from $2.57 billion in losses in 2022 to $3.94 billion last year.