The almighty dollar is designed to be uncrackable. From the distinctive feel of the greenback’s cotton-and-linen-blended paper to its watermarks and color-shifting ink, the Treasury Department goes to excruciating lengths to ensure no one can counterfeit the world’s most powerful currency. But the U.S. Treasury Department was no match for Art Williams, one of the most inventive and prolific counterfeiters of recent decades. After learning the craft at 16 from his mother’s boyfriend, Williams, the product of a tough neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side, went on to print an estimated $10 million in fake money by outmaneuvering the government’s ever-tightening security measures. Color-changing ink was replicated by automotive paint; watermarks were painstakingly sketched by hand; a close copy of the secret paper came from leftover newsprint rolls made at local mills. Williams had a successful 10-year run before he was finally caught by the U.S. Secret Service and sentenced in 2002 to three years in prison.
Writer Jason Kersten first told Williams’ story in Rolling Stone magazine in 2005. Now he’s returned to the subject for a book, The Art of Making Money: The Story of a Master Counterfeiter. Williams took a stab at making an honest living, but eventually returned to counterfeiting and was arrested again in 2007. He’s currently serving a federal prison term scheduled to end in 2013. Kersten spoke with TIME about Williams’ remarkable criminal career and the odd allure of duplicating dollars.
