Do you ever feel like you never have enough money? It’s an age-old gripe and one that has left people exasperated the world over.

With rumours that South Africa could run out of money by 2024 it’s not surprising that there’s a scramble to get one’s hands on a stash of cash.

You know things are getting desperate when new, creative scams are becoming the norm.

One man from Quebec, Canada, decided to take matters into his own hands, Sky News reports, by printing his own dollars.

Frank Bourassa started creating counterfeit dollars after dealing with the seemingly endless frustration of the daily grind.

“There was this moment where I was stopped at a red light, and I was like – ‘why do we go to work? Why do we set up businesses? The end goal is money. It was at that moment that I decided I was going to start printing fake money.”

What started as a relatively simple idea led Bourassa to become one of the greatest counterfeiters the United States has ever seen.

Bourassa managed to churn out $250 million dollars (over R4 billion) before the Secret Service cracked down on his sketchy operation, which he was running out of an illegal printing shop set up on a farm.

The US king of fake dosh explained after his arrest that he had dabbled in criminal activities before, in the form of a sizeable marijuana-growing operation, however, his illicit printing business was the grandest con he’d ever attempted.

12,5 million notes of US currency were printed in Bourassa’s den and the Quebec counterfeiter could then potentially sell the stacks of cash off for 30% of their fake worth.

Sounds simple enough, right? Not exactly.

While Bourassa had the idea to print money in 2004, it was only years later that he began his illicit business. Bourassa spent a great deal of time attempting to get the correct paper for the job, one which would hold up to scrutiny when Bourassa managed to move the stacks.

“The paper, the ingredients – I knew nothing about it,” Bourassa admitted, “there is a ton of work that goes into that paper, everything about it is different.”

While many paper mills were skeptical when Bourassa approached them looking for his specific requirements, one specialised mill managed to hook him up, for the high price of $50 000 (roughly R596 000).

On top of this, Bourassa made sure that he was well-equipped for his printing operation – “I had cutters, slicers, bundling and counting machines, I had it all.”

Unfortunately for the 49-year-old Canadian, one of his clients accidentally led him straight into the waiting arms of the Secret Service. Even the officers were impressed by the counterfeiter’s product quality.

“The police were excited to find so much in one place,” Bourassa explained, Officers later said the notes were so good they were barely detectable to the naked eye. I had been caught because of a transaction I did with the fifth customer I had obtained. He was unaware that he had been infiltrated by the police.”

However, the Secret Service only found a portion of Bourassa’s stash and, luckily for him, they agreed to strike a deal with the middle-aged Canadian if he helped them recover the rest of the counterfeit bills.

Bourassa managed to avoid spending 60 years in prison after helping US officers seize the rest of the money and is now back to working a legitimate job.

For Bourassa, this meant overwhelming relief and hard-to-forget lesson in what it means to ‘make’ money.

“That feeling was so good it’s hard to describe, because when they told me it could be 60 years I thought that was the end of my life”.

Lucky break.

[source:skynews]