How the 'world's best counterfeiter' got away with $50 million, even though he was caught (2024)

I am the world’s best counterfeiter. – Frank Bourassa

World-class counterfeiter Frank Bourassa was arrested earlier this year for counterfeiting $250 million of U.S. currency, and he got away virtually scot-free.

Working out of Quebec it took Bourassa a year to figure out how to get the right paper to make realistic feeling U.S. bills, he told GQ recently. Then he had to figure out the special font, color-shifting images and security strip. And he did it so well his fakes were nearly undetectable.

“I am the world’s best counterfeiter,” Bourassa told ABC News in May.

He was caught after he sold to someone undercover, he told GQ, but only after he’d sold $50 million worth of his fake bills over the course of a year.

“Bourassa’s counterfeit was so good, he was able to cut the deal of a lifetime,” ABC’s Brian Ross said. “In exchange for turning over boxes of the remaining [$200 million in] fakes and plates and special paper, Bourassa spent only a month and a half in jail and he says Canada has agreed not to extradite him to the U.S.”

He was, however, required to pay a paltry $1,500 fine, according to his GQ interview.