Fake billion-dollar notes seized
From: Agence France-Presse
From correspondents in Los Angeles

March 15, 2006


US authorities had seized 250 bogus Federal Reserve notes each bearing a $US1-billion ($1.36-billion) face value in a Los Angeles area apartment, the Homeland Security Department said overnight.
The notes, dated 1934 and bearing the portrait of 19th century president Grover Cleveland, were treated to look old, investigators said, but authorities noted the highest note issued by the Fed had a denomination of $US100,000.

"We receive calls on a regular basis from people who have acquired what turn out to be bogus Federal Reserve notes and are upset because the United States government refuses to redeem them," James Todak, deputy special agent in charge for the Secret Service in Los Angeles, said.

"You would think the $US1-billion denomination would be a giveaway that these notes are fakes, but some people are still taken in," he said.


The discovery of the billion-dollar notes stems from an investigation into a man who has pleaded guilty to attempting to smuggle $US37,000 ($50,275) in currency into the US after a trip to South Korea in 2002.




Yeah, I'll have a pack of gum and a paper. Sorry I've got nothing smaller.
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Can someone reactivate me please. I vote my deactivation as the lamest ever. You know its right. Do it, do it do it.