Posted on 03/15/2006 1:37:49 AM PST by MadIvan
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The counterfeit money looked good, but there was one flaw. There's no such thing as a one billion dollar bill.
U.S. Customs agents in California said on Tuesday they had found 250 bogus billion dollar bills while investigating a man charged with currency smuggling.
Tekle Zigetta, 45, pleaded guilty to three federal counts of trying to bring cash, phoney bills and a fake $100,000 (57,000 pound) gold certificate into the United States in January.
Further investigation led agents to a West Hollywood apartment where they found the stash of yellowing and wrinkled one billion dollar bills with an issue date of 1934 and bearing a picture of President Grover Cleveland.
"You would think the $1 billion denomination would be a giveaway that these notes are fake, but some people are still taken in," said James Todak, a secret services agent involved in the probe.
Probably a republican legislator going to a budget meeting on social entitlement and illegal immigrant benefits planning.
Look up James K Polk, the most underrated ex-President ever.
During the early days of the California Gold Rush there was a lot of privately minted coinage. I don't know if this story is true, but I've read that a man successfully defended himself against counterfeit charges when it was discovered that the gold coins he was circulating had a higher gold content than the Federal coins!
To be honest, I'm about as familiar with Polk as Andrew Fisher (the 5th Prime Minister of Australia from 1908 to 1915) i.e. "Who?"
Not really, do you want two $500 million notes, or five $200 million notes? Reminds me of the time I jumped out of the jet in Brazilia and grabbed a cheeseburger, fries and a coke. I handed them a $5 bill and waited while they rummaged through a cigar box and gave me 850,000 of the local back in change. I gave all my family a 100,000 note for Christmas.
Just look at a US map the day he took office, and look at one the day he left office...
James Knox Polk (1795-1849)
As the expansionist eleventh President of the United States, James K. Polk was perhaps more responsible than any other single person for setting the boundaries of what came to be the American West.
LOL. Oh, that's sick!
Woodrow Wilson.
Man, I just got one of those in my change at Wal-Mart. :-D
I saw one back in the 1960s.
Tour a mint. They used to pass a sheet of the 100K notes around just so you could say you held more than a million in actual cash in one hand. :-)
Sorry, I only have change for $500,000,000.
There was a case a while back where some dude printed up a bunch of $3 bills and spent them at the local Burger King or whatever.
They decided they couldn't charge him with couterfeiting because there is no such thing as a REAL $3 bill.
"You would think the $1 billion denomination would be a giveaway that these notes are fake, but some people are still taken in," said James Todak, a secret services agent involved in the probe."
Some people are too dumb to live.
Good to see you, MadIvan! ;o)
He seems significant in US history, but as the 19th century US is about as significant to the world as Australia is today, I doubt many will know or care about Polk.
In British school's history curricula, US history that is taught includes 1776 (under the broad topic of British colonial history and discusses the impact of American War of Independence upon later British colonial policies) and then leaps to FDR and WWII. Some teach Lincoln and the Civil War but that's it.
He's not really taught in US history classes either, but that proves nothing.
In history class today, children are probablu being taught that MLK Jr. was the greatest American ever, that the Founding Fathers were all slaveholding racists, that Western Civ is evil, etc.
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