#681 - Ex-Counterfeiter Arthur Williams Jr.

29:55You know, that's why I like the counterfeiting, right? Because it was like, I didn't feel like I was really hurting anyone, you know? I'm not stealing. I don't like to steal. And the drug part, like, I seen what it did. But we would, so we started robbing them, right? And one of my dudes, he, like, my son, so my first son, his mom's a cop, right? So, like, yeah, right? That's a whole other lane. Well, we won't go down that one. But it allowed, you know, a lot of my guys, we had friends that were cops, so we could get uniforms, we could get badges, you know. I always loved a cop car. And I had a nice one, right?

30:30I always had a real nice one. And I loved it because I could move through, see, I'd wear glasses and, you know, make my hair to the side and I look like a cop, you know. But we started, you know, we'd start robbing the drug dealers. The ones like out in the suburbs. And basically what would happen, these guys from the suburbs would come in and they'd like to hang out at the clubs downtown. and they want to flash their money to the girls, we'd have girls that were working for us. So we'd have girls in those clubs and they'd be like, hey, this guy, he's doing this, this, and that. And we're like, okay, cool.

30:58And she wouldn't sleep with them, but she'd go home with them, become friends, hang out with them, finesse them. And then we'd come and poof, right? And we'd be like, we'd have fests on, guns, like legit, like dressed like cops. Yeah, dude. But yeah, no, and we did that. And then it got dangerous. It did start getting dangerous because we started getting stupid. Like, you know, at first it was, and that's how crime. What, y 'all throw like a police ball or whatever? Like, I mean, how stupid do you guys get? Well, that's stupid like that. Were y 'all playing softball against the fire department or something?

31:28Like, what were you guys doing? Yeah, no, no, no. But we were like robbing more dangerous elements. Okay, got it. So it escalated. It escalated. Like all crime. Like all crime escalates. You go from, oh, we're going to hit these white suburban kids from out there. They think they're cool. And now we get our balls so big. We were like, oh, we're going to hit that cat on 18th Street that got 10 guns around him. Oh, yeah. Right? So you go from, like, you know, it just escalated. It's escalation ladder. And then I got shot. I got shot in my side. And there was a lot of things that happened that caused me to go to my next phase.

32:04Okay, got it. But we did for that little brief, you know, there was, I guess, for about three years, maybe, I was just running hard on the street. And who shot you? Latin King. Latin King shot me, tried to kill me. Did he spare your life? No, hell no. Yeah, he tried to kill me. Yeah. No, I was walking home from a party like 2 in the morning. I'm walking through a basketball court, and I hear two guys behind me. I look. They got handkerchiefs on, and I thought it was my dudes from the party. And so I'm like, hey, man, take the handkerchiefs off, man. You know, you're getting me nervous. And they're like, getting you nervous.

32:40And boom, they pulled out the pistols and just started just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I turned around. I took off running put my head between my legs I could feel the bullets just right and and then I got hit and I fell to the ground right as I was almost around the corner from the projects you know I got hit and I stayed on when I hit the ground I was just gonna stay on the ground and figure they thought they killed me and they take off but when I hit the ground I look back they were running up on me they were gonna try to dome shot me you know and something real spiritual happened at that moment Like I felt something grab me from underneath my armpits, you know, and just kind of like lift me off the ground.

33:21And I ran like five blocks to 31st and Halston. I was on 32nd and Lutheran. And was you leaking too? I was leaking, yeah, yeah. You plug it up? Did you plug up the wound with like a? There was a Chicago Tribune guy that was helping me. He might have had. You put some newspaper in it or something? I had to put a newspaper on me. Well, I didn't even know. I didn't even like feel it. It was weird because when I got to 31st and I sat down on the bus stop and I'm like feeling myself, you know, you're all like shaking and stuff. And then and then I stood back up and I could feel like something on my side.

33:52When I grabbed it, it was just all red and just blood. And I told the Chicago Sun Tine guy, I said, hey, man, I've been hit, man. Called ambulance. Yeah. Yeah. He was delivering papers. Yeah. Delivering papers. Yeah. It was like three in the morning. But after that, that's when I went to Texas. You know, I was like my mom was like, man, you got to go. you know I've already had at that point like six of my friends murdered you know I'm only like 18 19 years old you know so shit was getting hot down there huh well the south side was dangerous back then man like I said guns hit the street man it seemed like everyone had one they were called Larsen's L-L-A-R-S-E I mean it's just for the type of gun yeah like right around 90 I'd say like 92 93 man everyone had these things it was a 22 a 25 and a 380 they were yeah they were like like that.

34:39The little guns. They were real tiny, like that. 22. Yeah, that's what we had. Yeah, that's it. Those things flooded, flooded the streets, man. That little grocery getter, you think? Yeah, they were a little tiny, man, but 22, 25, 380, and you get them for 50 bucks. And it's almost like they dumped them on the street. And then that's, and it just, so it went from, you know, fighting and bats and, you know, like the old school type to just. real shit, double dragon shit. Double dragon shit, yeah, to like everyone having these little I wouldn't be surprised. But I lost six of my friends during that time.

35:13And so I went to Texas. My mom said, let's get out of here. So I ended up going down to Texas. And when you get down to Texas, is that where your counterfeiting journey kind of continues? Yeah, yeah. So when I went down there, of course, I'm trying to get away from the gang violence. But I'm still me. I'm still a criminal, right? And so I go down there. I start getting with the wrong crowd. I get into a little trouble. I go to prison for like two years And in a Texas prison Those Texas prisons were rough too, man Wow, was it crazy I thought I was in hell But when I got out My girl Natalie, she picked me up And she took me to a hotel We did the whole, you know The whole prison release freedom party, right?

35:55Oh yeah, sex or whatever Sex, yeah, anyway And then we went to The first place I wanted to go Was to the bookstore Because I read a lot I've read thousands of books, right? And so I wanted a Bruce Lee book. And so she wanted to get me the Bruce Lee book. So we go to the bookstore and we're buying the book and she pays with a hundred, the new hundred. I hadn't seen it yet because I was in prison. And I'm watching. She pays and the lady just pulls out a pen and marks it and then puts it in the drawer. And I'm looking, I'm like, man, already I'm thinking like she didn't even look at the hundred. But she just used the marker.

36:30Yeah. And I just used the marker and trusted it fully. and I'm thinking in my mind I'm like man if somebody figured this part out man you could have a run right and that's where it started right I just got to beat the marker just got to beat the marker right that's the only thing on my mind I just got to beat that because nobody's looking at it and and that's where the the quest began you know and I'm not even out of prison like a couple days and here I am already thinking about the next crime that's that's what's so like the criminal mind could be so like obsessive and addictive you know like it really can be i mean it's kind of an addiction oh for sure right especially printing money like the smell of ink even now gets me aroused you know like anyway i mean i might use a different word but it makes me like get goosebumps you know yeah yeah the smell of like old candy ink when you open it so anyway so so we start we start the journey i'm and and just and i again here's one of those moments where I just in the, you know, I got a little bit blessed or lucky or star fell on my head or whatever, is Natalie was one of the first that was into tech, right?

37:39When the computers were coming out, the internet was only in like the libraries and the universities, right? So I would use the internet. At that time, I'd go into the library to look up how they made money. I could go onto the treasury site and they had like educational videos on how they put the money through each step. It was fascinating. You're lying. No, it was, yeah, you could still go. I bet you could still probably look up how the treasury makes money and they'll have videos. But this is early. The videos were slow, but you could see it, right? Right. And that's when I thought about Pete, right, about the offset press, right?

38:15And then, like I said, I got a little lucky because Natalie was a computer genius at the time, right? She was working for a tech company that, you know, they were calling. This is before other countries took all the call-in jobs, right? And so what I did is I combined the old technology and then the new technology together. So I created a hybrid, right? Did you have to have a conversation with her? Like, hey, babe, this is what I'm going to do? It slowly led there, right? Like first I'm just trying to just figure it out in my head how this could be done. Yeah, like how do you ease her into it?

38:50Just like you're sitting on the couch being like, wish we had a couple hundreds. Well, no, I didn't ease her into, I mean, a little bit of an easement, but she was ready to go, too. Like, she was fascinated how I was thinking, right? Because I'm telling her about when I was young and when I got to learn how to use the old printing presses. And then she's telling me about how she's like a technician for all the new stuff. That's a good point. She's already smashing criminals. So it's like, what are we even talking about? Yeah, so anyway, me and her, we start to come and form this thing. The first thing we had to do was figure out the paper, right?

39:23I know how I could get the press. I'm looking up where to get presses. We're calling places. So we could almost get everything we need from the ink to the printers. The printers were new, so they didn't have none of the Secret Service software in them. The Photoshop was new. All the stuff was new. So that's why credit card scams shot through the roof. That's why checks shot through the roof. People were doing corporate checks because all this equipment that was coming out, there was no safeguards on it. Oh, it was awesome. It wasn't tested. They hadn't really thought that people were going to use this for this yet.

39:55Yeah, we were using the magnet. They had magnetic printers. You could print the magnetic checks. Like that was like 96, 97. Probably looked that up. I bet you a fraud went through the roof, right? Because you were able to use these machines, you know, and we used them well. We, you know, she, she started looking in how to, uh, one of the first things we did was change the, uh, the Photoshop program where it wouldn't like, if you scanned a hundred, it had something in there where it would, um. In 1996, financial institutions faced a dramatic surge in check and credit card fraud. Yeah, right. That's what happened, man.

40:27Driven primarily by the... I was a part of it. I raised my hand. Yeah, I was a part of that shit. Driven primarily by the transition into the early digital era and the rapid adoption of desktop publishing technology. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, I just wanted to get that out there. But you were talking about the paper? Yeah. So the paper was the first thing we had to figure out. We could figure out all the other things. The printing, the technology, this. But if you don't get the paper right, it's worthless, right? Because you had to beat the pen, right? That was the first test that led us there, right, was the pen.

40:57And the paper is what beats the pen. Yeah. Well, it's the pH in the paper, right? Okay. The paper is like a – it's a neutral, right? There's no acid. So paper goes from like acidic levels. And so the money paper is like almost like at zero, right? It's really hard to get it at that, I suppose. I don't make paper, but as I learned how to do this, I learned that paper has these different levels on it. And so the pen reacts with that. With the acidic level. If it's not neutral, then what happens? It turns black. Okay, got it. Like a dark brown. Okay, got it. So that's like you see at the bank or some like - When you go to the store, you get them hundreds.

41:31Bodegas and stuff, they do that sometimes. Yeah, they do the pen. And if it's real, it'll turn like a light yellow, right? Got it. It's like a light yellow. It's a beautiful color. Love that color. So here it is. We're trying to figure out this paper, and we're ordering paper from everywhere. But like back in the day in the yellow pages, again, the Internet's only in the libraries and the universities. So you still had yellow pages back then. So here we are going to this paper company, this paper company. We're ordering, getting samples. She's marketing, marketing, marketing. We're going on and on with this.

41:59Finally, I'm losing. I'm thinking we're not going to be able to pull it off. And so I'm getting a little upset with her. I'm arguing with her that we're not doing something right. So she starts screaming back at me. She's waving the yellow pages at me. You fucker here, fucking running me ragged. like I was really running the girl hard too, right? And she slammed it down and she goes, nothing works. And she marked the yellow pages and she just, she stopped. She goes, she goes, I can't believe this can't be. And I'm like, huh, what's going on? Cause I still don't know. And she hits it again and again.

42:29She goes, she looks up, she goes, this whole time, we've been looking for the paper and this is it, Art. Come here. And I go over there and what the fuck? It marked. I got nervous. when I seen it go yellow I got so nervous because I didn't have to do nothing to it bro up until this point I even started trying to put acid on the paper I almost burned the house down like a real asshole I put acid in aluminum don't ever do that don't do it but I was trying to do all kinds of dumb things so you were trying all different papers all different papers and I'll hear the whole time it's the freaking yellow pages that is like one of the most widely used paper in the whole world like what types of different patterns linens um different poundage 20 because the pay what pay uh papers weighed right like you got you got 20 pound they're like like school paper would probably be like a 26 pound 32 pound right you're printing papers like 32 yeah uh what i needed was 18 right so it was real thin right and and this is what happened this is what made this so amazing.

43:35So here I was looking for the paper that I could mark right, but now this gave me, it solved a bunch of things because I needed to solve the watermark and I needed to solve the strip, right? And then the strip is fluorescent. So now I got to figure out how to make the strip fluorescent, but I got to put all these things in the paper. With the yellow pages, because it was so thin, it allowed me to press two of them together. it was awesome right i'd print three on each side three fronts three backs i'd have my strips and my watermarks i'd have a light table and i would have all the stuff just every piece laid out and i would just lay it was all hand done that's the one thing about my money right so like people ask how much i've done and i've printed and made a lot but every single piece was hand done wow every piece every every one i put that watermark in every one i laid that strip every one of them she'd be standing right next to me you know it's a little newborn oh yeah a little baby it's a piece of art it really was and then then you press them but but when we found that well you know when she did that now we're looking for the paper she she would go to uh rr donnelly out there in the suburbs of chicago say that she was a teacher and she was doing a school project with the kid could i get get some paper and they'd give us a whole roll of it for free wow the whole roll like enough to do like a million dollars, right?

44:56It was, it was, it was, and, and. For the, of the phone book paper? Of the phone book paper. We'd get it on a butt roll, they call it, right? Wow. So after they're done printing the phone books, they would have these butt rolls that would have like that much left on her or something, man. They would just, and so she'd come out of her, man, with free paper, like, look at me, man. We'd load that shit up. And, and then we would cut it, and then we'd prep it. We had to do a lot to it because, so when we started to try to run it through the ink jets, it couldn't match the colors right so at first i wanted to just run it off the inkjet right the printer the printers and you know the normal printers but you could get like the serial numbers really good you could get the seals really good you could get certain maybe the back sometimes the right ones in the early days you could get good but the actual color of money you can never match ever i don't i don't give a shit how good you were i mean again again here we go now we got the paper now it's time to do the files right you think you'd be able to figure out the color right i mean the colors with a computer you don't control it it's the computer that uses the pantone so it's a pantone color i see right so it wasn't really exactly up to you i mean if you're printing if you're using if you're using an inkjet it's gonna it's only gonna have so many variations you can adjust it you know and so like with money right you're trying to create something that is the most powerful tool in the world yeah right and and and money has a feel it has a look It has like a greenish cream color to it, right?

46:26And even though it looks very simple, it's still very powerful, right, that build is. And so if you're printing like the way that I did it is I did every layer like they did. When I went to their website and I watched how they did it, the first thing I learned was they did every single image by itself, right? That's what made my money so good. that's what separated me from all the other counterfeiters before me and most definitely all of them behind me i like to do one thing at a time if you try to do everything at one time which a lot of the counterfeiters did you're always going to get one or two or three of the the the assets off right because because the the face and the and the weave around it which is micro printing or the seals or the numbers there's so many different things that you got to print and if you try to print them all at once it's going to be impossible to match all of them and if you only get one or two off you could tell you could tell right away right every one of them has to be perfect if you want to really fool the world with the money right so how would you go about doing one and then doing the next one like with a printer were you still using the printer you put that kibosh on that well no that's when it advanced to bringing back pete's technology with the offset because it allowed me to mix my own ink got it right so i needed what i needed to figure out was how to color this paper right and that was one of the hardest things it's so so so like trippy when i think back on it because on the scale the amount of paint that i used for a run was like an eyedrop right to get that light light light green creamy look was one of the hardest colors to match i mean a run means one bill or how many bills it's just one run through right Right.

48:09Like, so, so. I see what you're saying. And how many times you have to run through to get a bill correct? So for the registry, so, so I'm going to give you some printing knowledge. Right. So, so what made my bills, what would allowed me to be able to run, keep running it through is the registration. Like on a printer, you got that little thing that moves to the side. Right. For the paper. Like if you change the paper size. Okay. Right. If you have eight and a half by 11. Oh yeah. There's that little thing. That little gauge. It's like, okay, you pull, you move that to the side of it to kind of keep it right there.

48:35That's called registration. Okay. It keeps the paper straight, where it goes into the computer perfect. Same thing on an offset press. You have a registration. A little bit harder to work with on that, though. You've got to be really lined up because that paper is flying through that thing. Whereas the printer is like, right? Offset presses. It's just shooting it out really fast. So that registration, but I was able to get the registration pretty much perfect every time. with you know just being patient with it right not not trying to force it and so the first thing i would do is run the paper through the offset press so this is when i combine the two i seen that the ink jets couldn't print the background it was impossible and so i said okay let me let me get a printing press and let me go do the old way you know one of pete's yeah one of pete's and then we'll use natalie's way with the serial numbers and the seals right it worked really good for the serial numbers because i could change every single one of them right and the seals it matched really close right but with the with the printing press i wanted the color and the in the weave and the face i wanted that face to be perfect yeah because you know if you try to scan the bill it would create this little wavy thing around the head and it just looked nasty right that was one of the security features it's called a marae and they didn't even list it up there but that's one of them but with the printing press i get to shoot my own i get to take a picture of it right and so when i went back to that that's when the bills went like from here to here right because now i'm really making it like the feds are making it just at a very small you know small scale right yeah and the first thing i would do is i would we would cut the paper and we'd have to put it on a carrier paper which was a thicker paper because that 18 pound was so skinny that it would jam the the big press oh that makes sense yeah if you're putting like yeah if you're putting phone book paper through a printer it's not going to make it it would just just tear it up so we'd have to put that on a piece of paper thicker and then tape the sides funny story I had a whole a senior citizen uh living place putting paper on paper for me like 50 boxes man really yeah we were doing yeah well I we were about to do a big run and so I asked my boy to Greek I said man I gotta I gotta get all this paper put on man he's like how many buys like 50 boxes he's like dude that's great I said what and he was uh remodeling a senior citizen home and he's like well guess what dog he was uh the senior citizen home that I'm doing some work on, they play in the game room all the time.

51:00Maybe I'll ask them. He goes, there ain't no money on it. I'm like, no, no, there ain't no money on it. I just need one piece of paper placed on another and taped to two sides. So we asked the head of the senior citizen, and I had, before you know it, I had like 20 old people doing it. We were doing contests. I was paying them 50 bucks a day. And they don't even know. They don't know it's going to get printed into money. Yeah, they were helping. It was awesome, but they had fun. They were laughing. Yeah, they had fun for sure. They did contests. For sure they were laughing. Who could do the most?

51:30I would give a bonus for who could do the most. Oh, they would all come out. But they had no idea they were helping you counterfeit. Not at all. Not at all. Not one bit. And we got it done like that. It was so awesome. Yeah, that was fun. But anyway, so yeah, the paper, we'd run it through. We'd do the background. Then we would do the weave in the face. And then we would run it through the new technology. And we would do the serial numbers and the seals. And then that little hundred, right? And then even that with the shifting ink, this is what was the coolest thing, I think, with me creating this bill, was how I was able to take just your common things, right?

52:06Like take car paint and use it for the shifting ink. It was car paint, but I was able to alter it. Well, not at all, it was the same company that made it for the feds, right? I mean, it wasn't too smart of them, right? How did you find out that they made it for the feds? Through their patent number. so I would also look up patent numbers that's how I figured out the counter machine in the banks so I'm like a scientist with stuff I'm always trying to figure things out and what's really nuts is the federal government they give you the patent office if you have a patent number you can go to the patent office and put the patent number and it'll tell you you can make a nuclear bomb if you want it it'll tell you everything about it well it has to so if you're trying to file a patent you gotta do a patent search so I got the my boy's mom worked at the bank and I had her get the patent number off the counter machine.

52:53And then I just went and put it in the patent trademark office, and it gave me the whole schematic, man, how it used the magnetic ink for the thread, how it did this, how it counted. I mean, I literally defeated the bill by using their own knowledge. Yeah, it was pretty cool. Wow, dude. Dude, and I remember whenever we met up in Chicago, you told me that whenever you made that first bill, it was crazy. The feeling was really overwhelming because— it was scary it was I mean I don't get scared much but it it put a it put a level of fear in me like what did I just do you know like I you know because I'm from the streets and and I and I and I've seen people get hurt I've seen people do really well but money can cause a lot of things you know oh yeah and and so for me I'm sitting here like the the first thing that came to mind is be as secretive as possible.

53:47Don't let anybody know. Like, I didn't want to tell nobody, right? So it wasn't, you know, sometimes you do something that you're so proud of that you want to go show your mama. Yeah, I didn't want to show my mama this one, right? Like, I didn't want to show nobody, man. And I got nervous. I'm like, man, they'll kill us. They'll kill us. I told, I actually told them, they'll kill us for this, man. Like, this is their power. And we're learning how to create it out of freaking yellow pages. Yeah. You know? I can't even imagine. Yeah, it was ridiculous, you know? And so... And so now you can make money.

54:23Yeah. Right? How long does it take you to make, like, a decent amount of money? And then what do you decide you're going to start doing? And what do you start spending it on? Well, again, crime escalates, right? So, you know, at first it was like we wanted to just... Because I wanted to be secretive about it, we would just drive around the country and just spend it, right? We'd shoot to the other side of the country. Where'd y 'all go? Like Vegas? To the malls. You know, I mean, no, we'd hit it. I'd probably hit every town in the country. Like I'm like back road already, man. I have been on every back road in this country.

54:52You were just cruising and just having a good time? I got like 2 million miles under me for sure. Absolutely. On the road driving? Yeah, back then we had the Atlas, you know? So we'd look at a town and every town always had like this little mall in it, you know? And Natalie got good, boy. She could hit a mall, man, be on the other side of it. Spent, you know, almost 15 ,000 in like an hour and a half. Damn. And we'd be on the road, shoo, gone, you know? And we sometimes, well, the most we ever did with three in one day, she was on a roll. I don't know if she did a lot of cocaine or what, man, but she wouldn't stop.

55:21You know if she did a lot of cocaine, but let's keep it going. Well, she was going. Anyway, so like, yeah, we would hit the road, man. But what happened is first we started buying things for us. And then before long, you got so much, man, shit don't mean nothing. Like you're almost like, God, I feel like an asshole. Right? I got 150 shirts. Right. Yeah, what are you going to do? You have a lot of pairs of shoes. What are you going to do? Yeah, so then we started getting things for, like, our family and friends and stuff like that. And were people noticing that you had money? For sure. Yeah, but people, you know, the thing is, is I was always looked at as a hustler.

55:59Got it. Right? So whether it was robbing drug dealers or, like, I mean, we even hit trucks a little bit, you know? My boy was a teamster. We'd get shit off the docks, you know, all the time. one time I had like 250 ,000 condoms everyone in Chicago was wearing one of the condoms oh you robbed the truck? yeah the trucks in Chicago that was another little hustle we had I had Bic razors I've had everything but anyway back to the money yeah how were you spending it? so we started buying stuff for like our families and friends but then that even kind of got to the point to where like people started expecting things yeah like you know like you'd come into town and like they were like always looking what's what's you got me now right you know and if you didn't there'd be like an attitude or something you know so like that's when i stepped away from that and then then we just started buying things for kids right i grew up poor grew up in the projects you know we were at the salvation army shelter home you know and so there's a salvation army box in every town yeah so i would just tell tell natalie listen just get diapers baby clothes baby shoes baby toys let's go drop them off and we'll just drop them off and that was like that was like one of the coolest times of my life that's the most fulfilling they say i they say i did that by my therapist said when i was in prison i did it to like cover up my crime but for me it really i i loved helping people man it was awesome what made it one of the best times of your life well because i just knew because it wasn't even just the salvation art but even families like you know uh one of natalie's friends down in houston was struggling, man, and we just showed up at Christmas and just, bam, blessed our kids with rent and toys.

57:39They weren't going to have a Christmas and see that. Or even like I'd go to church, man. I was so sick with it. I would take 10 % out and I'd go to church on Sunday. We hit the malls Friday and Saturday and I'd go to church and give them 10 % and walk out. I just love doing things like that. So you were using some of the counterfeit money to go tithe. You'd give 10 % counterfeit money? give god the money he's the biggest gangster ever man you know for sure gotta give him his man well you know what that's the thing about life right like the there's there's i call it the flow right like when you when you when you give man it you're what you're doing is you're opening yourself up man for a lot of good yeah a lot of good you know and i learned how to do that even in the toughest times like man we when there were times when i was growing up man where we didn't have uh hot water for two years we didn't have no hot water you know how cold it gets in chicago yeah here you're you're taking a cold shower you know while it's 30 degrees out yeah like that shit was rough yeah you know but even in that you found some happiness man right right and it's all about the mind the thought man where you're where you're where you're gonna be you know and so for me helping these kids giving back doing that was like and i say it's one of the coolest times because because Even though my mom was mentally ill, my dad was gone, I lost my brother to mental illness.

59:03He's no longer with us. I lost two years ago. Yeah, out in LA, man, he's gone. But he was special. He had a great mind. So for me, the money at that time, that's what brought me happiness, was giving. Right, so it led you to a place where it's like, yeah, at least I get to do something for others, right? That's a good, I mean, it makes sense, especially if you come from a place where you didn't have much, then you would want to be able to give to others, you know? Did you try to put any money in the bank? No, no, no. I mean, my bank was a forest preserve. Just burying it? Yeah, I'd bury it, man.

59:40I'd stuff it in PVC pipes. Well, first I'd put it in plastic, seal it, because PVC doesn't disintegrate, you know, and stuff it in there and then go bury it. I probably still got stuff buried out there. I just don't know where it's at. We can go look sometimes if you ever come up there. Hypothetically. I got at least three that are still buried somewhere over there. I just lost the map. Three mil, you think? Oh, no. I don't know about that. I'd always do like$100 ,000 tubes. Yeah. You know, like just little ones. You know, put maybe two or three or four tubes in a hole, five tubes, you know. But, yeah.

1:00:11I did lose some out there, but I really don't know where it's at, and I don't want to find it. That's just – I just need to say that. Did you ever give counterfeit money to people that you knew? Oh, not like purposely, right? You know, like I like to play with it. One of my favorite things back then, you know, the bombs on the street that would have the little signs, we'll work for food, right? I always give them$100. Yeah. Yeah. Because, you know, they'll go spend it. And they were good. I knew that they wouldn't get caught with it, right? And they'd go spend it in a place that I probably would never have gone.

1:00:43Right. You know, so like if it did pop up, hey, you know, what's going on? What happens to places that end up with counterfeit money? Like what happens to say like you go to like a bodega or a gas station someplace, you pass a$100 bill on them. What happens to those places? So here's the thing. So like corporate stuff back then, they could just write it off, right? The bank could snatch it. They'd have to write it off as a loss, right? We'd always try to stay away from like both, you know, I don't want to go hit a mom and pop with a bogus hunter, you know, because I don't want it to pop up on them in their bank and then they get it.

1:01:15so it was always like I always try to stay towards the corporation stuff you know like the Walgreens the Walmarts you know I wouldn't go to the corner store and spend it on on old lady you know got it but the corporations you know now I mean I think they changed it to where now they do make them responsible but back then because it wasn't so like aggressive the laws were a little bit lighter what do you mean it wasn't so aggressive well there wasn't the counterfeiting that wasn't like a really big crime. Like there's drug dealers in every city, thousands of them, right? There might be one or two counterfeiters in a city, right?

1:01:55Like the crime was, especially when the new bill did come out, it did defeat a lot of things. You know, a lot of - The 1996$100 bill? It put a lot of people out of business. Got it. You know, like it did. Yeah. And, you know, and still does. I mean, I don't think really there's been a huge, impact a counterfeiter since then, especially with the new build. The new build's almost impossible to do. Yeah. It would cost too much money to try to even replicate it. Is that true? Yeah, oh yeah. What new features have been added? Well, the visual physics. It's that purple strip. So, like I said, yeah, you can look it up.

1:02:28But on the 2015, I think it came out in 15 or 13. I think it was 13 because that's when I got out. I felt like they let it out right when I got out. And it's a purple strip that goes on the middle. And it's actually like, there it is. it's actually like thousands like nano nano shards of glass that they embed and in it and it's called visual physics it's actually really fascinating do they even tell you it's called visual physics in that thing no no they don't let me see this right here this says it has a 3d security ribbon for one where if you tilt the note back and forth while focusing on the blue ribbon or blue strip some people call them you will see the bells change to 100s as they move when you tilt the note back and forth the bells and 100s move side to side if you tilt it side to side they move up and down the ribbon is woven into the paper not printed on it wow it's called visual physics that's the name of it some scientists created and the reason they didn't release the bill at the time was because that the bills were defected so that that printing technology wasn't perfected and they were trying to use it too soon so if you take 100 if we had one and you folded it right on that it would rip from there real easy real easy right and and so they didn't release it for a while the ribbon would rip you mean yeah right on the edge of the ribbon the bill would just come right apart whereas money's made to be to last right got it and so these ones were a little bit that that that technology wasn't perfected when they decided to use it got it let me read the rest of these yeah bell in the inkwell color shifting 100 um erased in taglio printing uh Genuine bills feel slightly rough, particularly across Franklin's portrait and certain printed areas.

1:04:12On his lapel. You can feel his lapel. Oh, you can? Yeah, when you rub your thumb across his lapel, you can feel it. They had a famous director who used to pass money. I think it was from that movie Live and Die in Los Angeles. Can you look at it? It might have been Williams. Oh, Live and Die in L.A. Yeah. It's one of the greatest movies ever. Live and Die in L.A. Yeah, I love it. It's only counterfeit money. Oh, yeah. This is the guy right here, William Friedkin. Let's hear this real fast. He introduced me to a counterfeiter that he had arrested and put in prison. And he got this guy out to come and make counterfeit money for us, which was as good as the government's money.

1:04:53I know because I used to pass it. I used to spend these fake 20s. This guy was an artist. if I was the government I'd hire that guy to make the money cheaper so yeah that's pretty wild I remember hearing about that that he used to pass this money he used to go around and spend it and they had it on this the money they got I believe it was from the set of uh live and die in LA I'd like to get some of that yeah I collect money I'd love to get my hands on I bet you do I was actually doing a painting of live and die in LA in my gallery and on so I'm an artist now I had a space on Melrose and La Cienga and I was doing a live and die in LA picture I was doing the poster but I made it with money and I made it really badass and it was really big and on Halloween night I didn't go in because I went to take the kids trick or treating and there was a drive by and all my windows got shot out and somebody got shot I would have been there if I didn't go trick or treating But I was doing To Live and Die and I got bullet holes in my window.

1:06:02Like, what the hell is this, man? Dude, then predict the future. Predict like a really good one, like Theo goes to heaven. Paint that one. Yeah, no, yeah, no. But yeah, so we— Let's go back into it. So how much money do you think you printed over time? Oh, gosh. I mean, millions, millions, you know? But I burn millions, too. So my way—I would burn money if it wouldn't come out, right? You know, I'd get rid of it immediately. Because it was too risky to pass, try and pass it. Yeah, yeah. And you just didn't want it floating around, you know? Like, what's the escalation ladder like once you start to make money, you're buying things, you're tithing, you don't even know what to do?

1:06:37Like, what's happening with you personally? And then what's happening with you as far as making the money? Personally, you know, me and Natalie are having the greatest time of our life, right? But I was getting tired of hitting the road all the time. It gets exhausting. Because you don't want to spend it at home. No, no. You don't yet. Absolutely not, right? But I hadn't been in Chicago in like nine years. So when I went to Texas, I had stayed down there. And so I wanted to go back home, you know, and show my friends, you know, like now it's time. I know that, you know, I know I'm from an organized crime neighborhood, you know, so I'm thinking, man, this might be good.

1:07:13You know, I won't have to be driving around all the time because you're taking chances when you're hitting the road with that stuff. Right. You get pulled over and you got stacks of 20s, fives and ones. You know, the cops are going to be thinking something. How much would you have in the car sometimes? Oh, God,$30 ,000,$40 ,000. It's scary you have so much, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Even recently. Anyway, yeah. So, yeah, the money, you have a lot of it. It gets you nervous. And so I wanted a little bit easier life with it, right? So that's what happens with crime, though. It escalates, like I told you in the first.

1:07:42And so when I went back home, so when I was growing up in Chicago, the other thing is I like to play basketball. Love basketball. So I was on different teams, and we would go to different neighborhoods. and whereas the Chicago could be a little racy at times, you know, sports always healed that, you know, so I could go, I could go to 47th and Indiana, man, and go hoop and them boys love me over there, right? Or I'd go to Pilsen, man, I'd hoop with the, with the amigos over there. I mean, I was able to go in all over the city because basketball. Got it. And, and I wouldn't, you know, I created friendships in all the different areas, man, you know, you carry in village.

1:08:20and even now like I go anywhere man I'm probably the only white dude that go on 103rd and Wallace you know and hang out and just chill there right all them cats over there love me really oh yeah I'd go over there I'd leave quick I'd take you over there with me I mean I would leave quick but I would go but but I'm saying like I could move through city because I just and so when I went back you know I went back to my boys you know got it and so were you trying to big shot at that time a little bit like did you get a little bit of ego not at that time at that time I just wanted to sell large chunks of it, right?

1:08:47I wanted to sell 100 ,000 at a time for 30, right? Or 200 ,000. I never really wanted to go too high with the number. That's high. 100 ,000 was a good number, right? 100 for 30, you could walk away from that one, right? You start getting into the bigger numbers. You know, I've had people say, I want a million dollars. I had one guy, Jordanian dude, wanted 5 million, right? Did you consider it? I did, but I didn't, right? Like, I didn't do it, you know? I considered it he actually showed up I told him he was full of shit I'm like you ain't got that type of cash and he showed up he showed up popped his trunk man he had 300 grand?

1:09:25well that was 5 million so he had like 1.5 it was yeah it was a lot of money he had a suitcase of money what kind of girl? first time I Rolls Royce too who went to Rolls Royce? well he actually owned he owned you can't pull up in a Demi Lantra with that shit nah he owned the exotic car rental company in Chicago years ago oh yeah his cousin who I was going through actually killed him on the road in Vegas. There's actually a video of it. Oh, shit. Yeah, it got real weird because they were taking the money to Vegas.

1:09:53His stepmom or something owned a casino in Vegas and they were running the money through there. So when people would win, they would win that money? They would win my money, yeah. It was nuts, man, right? Yeah, it was crazy, yeah. And then I guess Muhammad, yeah, that was a real wild thing. Yeah, that sounds like a bad idea. It was a bad idea, yeah. But that sounds exciting, though. Well, for me, you know. And so how much were you keeping at the house then? At my house? So one of my dudes, Irish Cat from the south side, his dad was a big real estate guy. He had like, man, he probably had, gosh, he probably had like 60 buildings on the south side.

1:10:32Big apartment buildings that had like, you know, 20, 30 apartments in them. Like Cat was well off. He had a lot of apartment buildings, man. And when he died, my friend got them all. Oh, shit. So my buddy inherited like 40 apartment buildings, you know. I'd sleep everywhere. Well, I had eight apartments at one time, man. You did? Yeah, I had something over here. You had how many? About eight at one time. Eight apartments? Yeah, about eight. And so you would keep money in them? Well, I'd keep equipment. So I never did everything all at the same place. Got it. Right? Like I would print the money on the offset in one area, and then I'd move it.

1:11:07Right? I wanted to get it away from the offset as quick as possible. Got it. Right? because if I just got caught with this, I'm cool. I get caught with that, uh-uh, I'm gone. I wouldn't even been sitting here if I got caught with that. I see. Yeah, so, yeah, I was always able to get away without getting caught with the equipment. They never caught any equipment with me, you know? But so, yeah, I would have stuff over here. I'd have paper over here. I'd have money stashed over here. And how did things start to get hot?

1:11:35Just ego, you know, living a life, you know? Not the money's coming. man. Yeah, buying extra sandwiches, salads. You're going to the clubs. Cars, hats. Cocaine's blowing in the air. You know what I mean? Just the whole nightmare. Oh, you started popping, huh? Oh, man, I was an animal. I was a savage. I didn't know all that shit, dude. I was a savage, man. You fucking made it sound like you're fucking. Yeah, I am now. I'm a grown old man dad. No, but you made it sound like you're in there tithing. You guys are just popping into different malls with freaking blessing Cinnabons and shit. And now you're over here telling me all out getting it going.

1:12:08I was a dirty Christian. That's what I call it. I would pray anyway. I think, who termed that? Shiloh LaBeouf from Transformers. The dirty Christian. Leon Gabb is still saying. No, that's what happened, man. One of my boys, I got a really badass crew of cats in Chicago. Still do. My dude owned a drink. He was one of the owners of the drink, which was a real famous club in chicago then he had one of the dopest private clubs in the city called stilettos like super private you know i can imagine yeah yeah so so so i had my crew of guys we we were like we were serious we were badasses right you know you guys were out doing it yeah oh yeah dude i will say this some of the dudes that i know that get after it the most are from chicago oh yeah no We know how to have a good time, right?

1:13:05I mean, it's unprecedented, bro. And then they're always, like, at some point in the evening or weekend, they're always like, oh, have you tried this, like, sausage from – and it's always like some dude's grilling up some Polish franks or whatever. It's fucking the best. Oh, well, in the summer, my dude, Tommy, he don't even use a stove. Yeah, it's grill-only. We got one of our guys, one of our guys, Chris, he's a Russian cat, man. He likes to cook indoors, man. and Tommy tries to throw him out the window. He's like, only outside in the summer, man. No cooking inside, you know? Literally, that grill is going nonstop.

1:13:39But yeah, no, I just had a good group of guys, but we were animals. We were savages, man. So you're all out getting after it. You're doing the cocaine. Yeah, we were doing limos. We were doing just dumb shit, man. Our limos are for f***ing. Yeah, well, back then it was kind of cool. Yeah, I agree. Not now. The problem was you get in, and you got to go all the way in, and you got to come all the way out. Come all the way out. Now we do the Suburbans. Those are the best ways, right? Suburban level. Dude, sometimes limos, I'd get in. If you're the first person, you got to go all the way to the – like, bro, I'd be so drunk sometimes I couldn't even get out.

1:14:07I'm like, fuck it. I'll just stay. Just crawl out the fucking sunroof. No, I'll just stay in there. Yeah, just stay in there. Go to sleep. Because it's too long. It's like a hallway. It's like a hallway. It was too far to get to the door, dude. Yeah, but things started getting out of hand, man. You're drinking. You're going out. You're doing drugs. You're flexing. You're showing y 'all. You're flexing, and you're just making mistakes. Got it. with me you know my and and then and then for when I got caught it was just kind of just freak right because I'm always moving right but in the early time it was more of the quiet being the quiet ghost right you know and now you're going to the clubs and you're meeting people and you're doing more and you're doing more and you're doing more and you put yourself in in more danger the more you do right and so I actually ended up at the house of blues how I got you know how this the whole thing went down as I was at the House of Blues I was meeting somebody dude I've been to that House of Blues it's right over there it's across the river from the uh Chicago theater yeah yeah it was it was awesome back in the day was there a band playing yeah no it was a great night I mean we had so we went we were actually staying at the hotel because I had like a little I had like where I lived was in Marshall Illinois was like three hours or two I forgot how how south it was it was on highway one but so like I told you I'm real weird about where I lay my head at night.

1:15:25And so I rarely ever was in the city. Where I laid my head was usually outside of the city. Were you sitting at that tall hotel right there by the river? Well, you had the round things. You know where the round is? That corn husk looking one? That's the corn husk. Yeah, it's the corn husk. That's the one you're staying at? Yeah, that's the one I'm staying at. Let's go, dude. I've stayed there. You want to go? Well, let's go. Anyway, I got the cops. The cops kicked my door in. Did they ever kick yours in? No. Okay, well, they kicked mine in with guns out. You should have left the sign out there.

1:15:52No, they tricked me. Did they really? Well, what happened is we were down at the, so I'm coming in, I'm selling 100 grand to one of my dudes. He had me, you know, we were going to stay at the House of Blues, so I had him meet us at the bar. So I get in, and he's just, he shows up, and he's like, dude, I can't really stay because I got family from, he was one of my Russian friends, and he had family come in, they were doing a wedding or something. And he's like, he goes, why don't you come back to my house and we'll party with all my family, and then we'll do the deal tomorrow. I was like, all right, cool.

1:16:26Let's do it. So I went and we had a great time. But the bartender heard us say party. And I guess he was a snitch for, you know, some some some dicks downtown, you know. And so he called his his little, you know, contact. And so when me and my my wife's sister, because I had my wife's sister, she wanted to see the city. And I brought her up and, you know, it was all that. And she was having a great time. And so when we went up to the room, I went into the room and she stayed on the couch, you know, near the front door. But I was all the way in the back in the, in the, in the, it was like, you know, the suites, you got the, so the phone rings.

1:17:04Like, so we get, we get into the room like two in the morning, the phone rings, I pick it up and there's, there's no one there. You know, and when that happens, you know, you got a problem. You got about 30 seconds. It's, it's not good. Right. I put the phone down and not like literally 30, I mean quick. I hear the door knock, right? And do you have cash in there with you? Yeah, I had like 100 ,000. I had it in the closet in between the towels. As I put the phone down, I hear the door hitting and I scream out, don't open the door, right? but she got up because the suites were big she didn't even hear me she opened the door boom they come in they got their guns out I'm like this no no I'm on the bed it was just a crazy movie scene man you know what'd they think it was?

1:17:58they thought I was selling drugs oh because the guy said party yeah party so he thought it was cocaine again cocaine gets you in trouble man yeah so anyway they came in where's the cocaine? where's the cocaine? I'm like what are you talking about like I have no fucking clue what's happening right now they handcuffed me they handcuffed my my wife's sister she's crying she's only like 16 years old she's scared she's scared right she's because we were supposed I was going to take her to museums and it's going to be a great little like really nice day now she's in cuffs right and I'm thinking oh my god what is going on and does she know you have this money in the room no she don't know nothing.

1:18:37Yeah, she don't have a clue. I was just going, drop it off. And Natalie's like, man, why don't you take my sister with you? She wants to see the museums and all that. And I'm like, whatever. I bring her. And what happens? So now here I am. We're both handcuffed. And she's looking at me like, not one thing I will say about her. She didn't say nothing, man. She was sorry. Yeah, she just stayed there. She was crying a little bit. Then she kind of said, just calm down. It's going to be all right. She listened to me. Anyway, they're searching the room looking for the cocaine. They find the money in the closet.

1:19:06They got the money. It's a brick money. You know, they said, listen, you're going to go through with the deal. You're going to, you're going to call your contact and you're going to go through with this deal. And you're going to, you're going to have him come here and bring the cocaine here. I said, what are you talking about, man? Well, that's why you have this money. I'm like, man, you guys are, I ain't doing nothing, you know, and then they're getting all threaded and all that shit. Well, my luck, the the one cop he starts counting it right they get me there there's talking shit to me you know they're they're counting me he's like man you know and and then like probably like about maybe i don't know maybe five minutes into it he starts looking and he's looking for something and he calls his partner and he said and and he tells his partner he didn't so the guy was a fucking banker before he was a cop no he worked at a bank like a teller before he became a cop so he wasn't seeing no red and blue fibers in there.

1:20:00So I didn't have the red and blue fibers in this. And I later ended up putting them in after this because this happened. Yeah, that cool ranch, yeah. He didn't see the red and blue fire. He had everything else. He had the watermark, had the strip. He's like, man, I don't know what to think about this stuff. He goes, it got all this stuff on it, but I'm not seeing no fibers in it. It's just not making sense. So they said, well, we're taking them in anyway. So they took me in, they took her in. And then the Secret Service came. a woman's secret service. And she said, oh, we - While you were in jail?

1:20:32Yeah, they took us downtown, right? And what about the kid? They let her go? No, hell no. They had her, they put her in a cell too. But they, you know, the secret service showed up, right? And, you know, she's threatening me, telling me we know this, we know that. We've been looking. She goes, first she goes, we've been looking for you. We've been looking for you. I'm like, okay, you know, whatever. She goes, where, where, where, you know - Didn't find me, cuz. Yeah, she's trying, yeah. She's trying to, she wants to know where my stuff is, where my paper's at, where this is at. She's probably trying to meet someone, too.

1:21:00Who knows? Yeah, who knows with them, right? Because they're so, you know. You don't know. Yeah, you never know. But one thing she was doing was threatening me with my wife's sister. Oh. All right? She's like, you're going to tell me what I want. Or she's going to face some charges. She's going to face some charges. And I'm like, man, what am I going to do? Because I had to get my wife's sister out. On a good note, back then you had, like, those burn phones. You could get them at Walmart, right? right? A little$20 with the card. Remember, sketch, scratch the card off, put the number in it. So we had, I was like, I was like a James Bond criminal too.

1:21:33Never went into that, but I had surveillance, anti-surveillance shit. I had bug detectors. I had like all kinds of whacked out stuff, man. Like, you know, just really had, I could find hidden cameras and shit, had this little thing that, you know, anyway, I was real big into stuff like that. And again, safety, right? I always wanted to keep it to where if anything ever happened, it was just on me. That way I had Natalie in the world still where she could help me while I'm away. I don't want her to go down too because then it takes my access away. So y 'all ended up getting married, you and her.

1:22:08Yeah, we ended up getting married. Okay, got it. So here it is. I said, okay, I'll call her. They said, we know you got your stuff here. You know, Pharaoh said that your mom or her mom is with her sister right now at your house, but she don't know where the house is. And there's no way she could have known because it was in Marshall, Illinois, man. They flew into Indianapolis. I was in the cornfields, man, like for real. Right. And they said, so we want you to call her. Right. So I called Natalie and I said, hey, listen, I'm here in Chicago. I'm not in a good position. you know they got your sister and uh and she said yeah my mom's trying to figure this thing out right now I said okay well you know they're this is a serious situation it looks like I'm gonna be going away for a while well what was awesome she she went right into she went right into uh her movement and she got rid of everything everything like I mean I don't even know how she did her mama had to help her right but like by the time they got there natalie strung them along right she kept stringing them along and by the time they got there it was completely empty i had nothing in the house man the girl really saved my ass i get arrested they locked me up for the money that was in there they let her go right i say it's my money my thing right and my lawyer comes and he's telling me he's reading me the police report right and he's reads it off.

1:23:39He says, hey, he goes, you know, they see weed on the, they said they saw weed on the table, right? And that's why they came in, right? They seen it and boom, that was their probable cause. I said, well, that's impossible, man, because the hallway, they'd have to be Superman. They'd have to have x-ray vision to see the weed, right? And because there was a table around the corner. So he had someone go take pictures and then brought in the security person that actually like came with the cops and threatened to put him in jail if he lied. So he told the truth, said that there was no, they didn't see no weed.

1:24:10And then he had the pictures. And so when I went back to court three weeks later, my attorney read off, put the cop on the stand and read off the police reporter. Yeah, we seen weed on the table and that gave us the problem caused. So it was illegal. It was all legal. He goes, you know, officer, he goes, you're saying that you were able to see it. He goes, well, I have photos here with the data from the manager of the hotel that says no furniture was moved. And there's no way you could have seen a table. Right away, the prosecutor, ah, judge, ah. You know what? They stopped the hearing. Fucking judge dismissed it, and I walked right out.

1:24:44Nuh-uh. Walked right out. You were free? I was free, yeah. Couldn't believe it. I remember I called. She went back to Texas because she was from Texas with her mom. I remember calling her. I'm like, and she goes, where you at? How'd you call me? Because usually it's like you got a call from a correctional facility, right? Yeah. There's none of that shit. It's just me calling her. And I said, man, they let me out today. I just beat my case. She's like, what? And so then I ended up going there and then, you know. Then you kept doing it? Well, no, I stopped. Then I went through, I went into like a real bad depression and shit, man.

1:25:16And just, I couldn't, because now I got secret service knowing who I am, you know? And like, and then I felt like I was locked. If I did. They knew it was counterfeit. Oh, yeah. But they had to destroy it. Got it. They had to throw the money away, you know? And did you have any money hidden anywhere at that time? I mean, I had money stashed here, but I was scared to go it. I was like, I felt like the trees were watching, man, you know? For sure. Like, it was like, you know, in the Secret Service, you don't really know what they know. Right. Right? Like, they got secret weapons and shit, man. They can see underneath.

1:25:47Yeah, their name starts with secret. Secret, yeah. That's enough right there. Like, you know, so for me, it was in my head. And so I ended up watching this movie, man. it was an arm wrestle movie with Sylvester Stallone, Over the Top. Over the Top, yeah. And it was about a dad and a kid, man, and I just was missing my pops. Over the Top's a gay movie now, I think. Yeah, is it? Yeah, I think it's like Over the Top or whatever, or I don't know. I don't remember what it is, but it's something like that. Well, back then it was an arm wrestle movie with Sylvester Stallone. Oh, it's Over the Bottom, I think.

1:26:20Over the Bottom? Nah, we don't want to do no bottoms. That's the one I'm thinking of. Nah, we don't want to do no bottoms, but The Top. Yeah, this movie I remember, for sure. Yeah, over the top, man. It was awesome. My bad. So anyway, I ended up trying to find my pops. I went on and started looking for Arthur J. Williams Jr. One pops up in Alaska. So your past started catching up with you then, probably. Well, now everything's caving in, right? You know, like my whole world is like I don't want to go near my presses. I don't want to go to the apartments. I don't want to go here. I don't want to drive that car.

1:26:50You know, like I'm in a bad depression, man. Like I just don't want to move. So you find out where your dad lives? Yeah, so I ended up watching this movie, and now I got this thing. So I find out there's a P.O. box in, what was it? It was east of Anchorage, Chickaloon, Alaska. Damn. Right? Way the hell up there, man, right? He got far away from you guys. That's crazy. Well, it was the lady he took off with, right? She didn't want him to be around his kids. So she made sure she took him as far away from us as she could, you know? That's crazy. Yeah, it was terrible. But so I find him and I write a letter, you know, I say, hey, man, if this is Art Williams, boom, from Chicago, this is your son, man, here's my phone number.

1:27:32And I had a burnout phone and it took about three weeks. He called me and when he called me, I was like, you know, I said, hey, you know, I didn't tell him what was going on. I just say, man, I'd like to see him. You know, he said, well, you come up here. So this would be for the 911. So, you know, you could still get into the airports, you know, pretty easily, you know. And so I had fake IDs, too. So I ended up sneaking off to Seattle. And then I flew out of Seattle to Anchorage. And I brought Natalie with me. And my dad picked us up with that chick he took off. And I could just see the darkness on her face that I was showing up.

1:28:12And I remember driving out to his house and just kind of tripping that I was in Alaska. Like, I'm a straight South Side City boy, man. and now I'm in a fucking wilderness, you know? And that shit's wilderness out there, you know? Yeah, that's what I heard. Oh, yeah, it's beautiful, though, man. Nothing like it. But, like, when we got to his house, he had another separate, like, little guest house, and then he had, like, a little trailer over here, you know? And so we went into this guest house, and Natalie went out to the trailer, actually, and then his wife went into their house, and me and my pops just stayed up for, like, two days, man, smoking that Alaska perp, you know?

1:28:47because he had that purple bud before people knew it was purple. Oh, y 'all was bent off that iceberg shit, huh? Yeah, and we were talking shit and catching up. Was he like a crime guy? I mean, yeah, well, he was a paper hanger at one time. You know, like when I was young, he was running checks. So it's kind of odd that I ended up running money, right, paper, you know. And at that time, so when me and him were hanging, when I went to Alaska, you know, and we're smoking and we're talking, we literally stayed up for like two days just catching up and I was telling him about everything. I opened up about what I did.

1:29:19I had some of it on me. I showed him some of it. You break him off a little? Well, that's where all things went bad, right? That's when I ended up going to prison because, you know, after I showed him, so I call it gold fever, right? Like when people, when people, when I would show, that's the reason I didn't show too many people because when you showed somebody the bills and even, man, like even my canvas ones now, people see, can we print it on paper, right? because I print on canvas and I paint over it. Right. But even those bills, I've had people say, man, that looks good. It's on canvas. It's not even on paper.

1:29:53So when you would show someone the real bill. They get wet. Their mouth gets wet. Their brain gets wet. Everything gets wet, you know? Yeah. They just, I call it a go-fever because they would go into this, just their eyes would change, you know? Especially if he's up in Alaska, he's already half, he's into that shit. Yeah. Well, it got nuts. I mean, he. So you showed him the money. I showed him the money, and then after we started moving around, he had his own thing going on. He was growing bud in tractor trailers. They'd bury them underground, and then he would tap into the power line on the side of the highway.

1:30:27He had some crazy shit going on, too. Damn, y 'all are wild. Yeah, no, he was on one. I was like, man, aren't you scared to get electrocuted? He's like, man. He was actually tapping into the power line. and then they had this special material that the airplanes couldn't look through they were awesome this is early in the game and so we were bonded by showing each other what we were doing yeah I'll show you I'm doing the money, you're doing the weed I'll show you my crime, you show me your hands that's how we reunited like the crime things and it was awesome my dad was cool, he was funny it sucked he had left You know, I think for him, you know, he, he's seen how I was right.

1:31:11Like we, we, we were cool, man. And, and, and, and, and he felt, I could feel the, the like, damn, I wish I would have known this cat, you know? Like I wish I would have been around him more, you know? Yeah. He probably, you guys probably would have had a good time together. Good time. Yeah. You know, but so then anyway, he started, he started asking me if I, if he could make, if I could make more. Right. And, and, and I was like, man, yeah, of course. And then it's my dad, so I want to make him proud, you know? But I came clean with him. I said, look, man, the reason I actually came to find you is because I got jammed up in Chicago.

1:31:45And so I had to disappear. And he said, well, can you still make the money? I said, well, of course I can make it, but we have to change it. I can't make it exactly the same because then they'll know it's me. So some sort of element has to be changed in it. And so then he goes, well, can you do it? And I'm like, yeah. Were you planning on doing it? There was a thought because I knew I couldn't use the same recipe. But were you planning on making more? No, hell no. I wanted to go up there and I didn't want to do nothing, man. I just wanted my pops. Yeah. Yeah, I just wanted my pops. I didn't want to make no money, you know?

1:32:20Damn, that's kind of crazy then that he asked you. Well, he's a crime guy, man, you know? And then we're bragging about it. Hey, look at this, you know? Right, so then maybe he thinks my son thinks it's cool too. Yeah, you know? And even when I told him about what happened, man, he's like, you've got to wait. So there was even the element that I pulled the fast one. Right. Right? Like, even that was impressive to him. Right. You got out. I got out. Right? And now you're here. They don't know where you're at. Right? Fuck them. Let's go. Let's go. Right? So I told him, I said, listen, I'm going to do this.

1:32:52I got to go back to Chicago, and I got to get some supplies, and we'll ship them up here. And so I had brought with me about$20 ,000 of the fake money. I used to have a belt that I could put 10 grand in, and I could wear it around, you know? And that's what I was showing them. And so I said, here, listen, I'm going to leave this. Let's leave most of it here, and let's fly into Seattle, and then we'll drive across the country to Chicago. We can spend a little money, check out, get close, because, you know, we haven't seen each other for 22 years. Yeah. Right? Spend a little counterfeit cash, enjoy it.

1:33:32Yeah, enjoy it. Yeah, go to Chicago, get the material, ship it back. And we did. So he left the stuff with his wife, though, and she hated me. And so she started spending it in Alaska, giving it to her friends, telling her friends who made it, telling it was fake. Buying moose meat and shit? Just, yeah, moose meat, probably. Fur hats, fur. Fish. Fur fish. Fish made out of fur. But they were spending it. and and i had specifically told him you cannot spend this here in this in alaska you can't you know yeah because it's fucking way up here man oh you know you're done at least in the lower 48 you know you can move the money around so anyway she did though and not only did she but then she she made sure she let the secret service know who was making it when it all came down right because when we were in chicago so here i am in chicago and i'm sitting we're sending stuff back and um and then we see my sister and my sister my dad they get into it my sister is forgiving as i am she's kind of like man yeah yeah you know and she's even at me like what what's the deal man what do you care about what do you care about this cat he left us you know yeah and uh and so i didn't go back with him i shipped every all the stuff and i said i told him i had to go to texas to get one thing.

1:34:53And why don't he fly back and then I'll come. And I ended up leaving Natalie and the baby up there and she was pregnant, right? In Alaska? In Alaska. Okay. And so when I finally called her, I went back to Texas. She goes, why aren't you on the plane with your dad? I'm like, oh man, I had to go here. She goes, fuck that. You better, I'm pregnant, dude. What are you doing, you know? Yeah. And so I ended up getting the things I needed and I flew back to Anchorage, but I stayed with a niece's daughter in Anchorage when he, when he was out there. And, um, and it's so, so, so weird how things happened and how fast, but I was, I was getting a bad feeling.

1:35:31I don't know if it was weird. Like I just wanted to get out of there. So I'm telling Natalie, I'm like, Hey, we're leaving. We're out here. And, and, oh, that's what it was. When, when, when I went to visit him, he took me, uh, he took me to this biker party as hell as angels, right? He, he was real cool friends with one of the big dogs up there. And, uh, And we went to this crazy-ass gathering, and he introduced me to the dude, and then he told the dude that I was the one that made the money, and I looked at him like, what are you telling this cat that I don't know that I'm making money, man?

1:36:03I got pissed with him, man, real bad. That's pretty shitty. Yeah, it was terrible, man. He started showing me colors of reason why he left. You know, there was a reason he left, because he wasn't that cool, laughety dude. There was something wrong, you know? Yeah. And now I'm seeing it, right? And so after that happened, when I got back to the house, I told him, hey, pack up. We're leaving. We're getting out of here. And so then I ended up flying to Houston, and one of my dudes picked up, but the Secret Service was waiting for me in Dallas. So unbeknownst to me, as I'm wanting to get out of Anchorage because of how he is, Anise is working with the Secret Service the whole time.

1:36:41His wife? His wife. Yeah, so they're getting ready to— Why? Why would she do that? She just didn't want me around. She didn't want his kids around. It was the whole reason he took off for 22 years, you know? And so this was her way of just, like, get him out of here, you know? So once you hit Houston. Yeah, once I hit Houston, my boy drives me up to Dallas to where Natalie's mom is and Secret Service were waiting for me. They busted. They grabbed us. They said, we got you. And they did. You know, they had me. I ended up going to prison. My dad ended up going to prison because he had guns in the house and he was a felon in possession.

1:37:13And then she was the confidential informant. But when she went to court, she pleaded insanity. Oh, no, this woman was crazy, right? She pleads insanity. I get three years. My dad gets six years. Or no, he got four and a half years. And then she pleads insanity. And the judge takes her to trial and gives her six. Wow. She gets six years. Because she was lying about it. Because she was lying about it. I got less than everyone. It was wild. on the day I get out. At least you finally knew where your dad was for four and a half years, you know? Yeah, he was in Sheridan Federal Correctional. But anyway, well, sad part, though, is the day I got out of prison, he died.

1:37:54No. Yeah, had a heart attack that morning. In prison? In prison. Oh, man, I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You should have just said that. Oh, no, man, it's cool, man. My dad's laughing his ass off right now. He ain't tripping, man. You know? So the thing is, is that's irony in life, man, right? Like when my, when I got, so here you are, I'm getting ready to get out of prison. You're packing your stuff. You're happy. You're going home. You know, there's no better feeling than getting your freedom back. Right. And you walk out the door and then you get handed, you know, a phone and they tell you your dad's dead.

1:38:24And so you go from one high to the next quick. Right. And, and I had to deal with that. And then I ended up getting my son. Right. So I had, now I got a 13 year old whose mom's a cop and she's calling me pissed off because because he's printing$20 bills at her house off her little printer. Probably just trying to relate to his dad. Exactly, right? Because I just got out of prison. So now I got this kid, you know, that I'm taking care of because she don't want him at the house. And, you know, me and him ended up going to prison together. For what? Money. I ended up going back. With your own son?

1:38:54Yeah. No. Sorry, dude. Yeah, yeah. I can't even bother with that. You weren't arrested at the same time. No, we weren't arrested at the same time. So he's 13. bro i am yeah no it's crazy dog this shit's wild you can't i'm telling you this shit's so nuts man like i i sit back and trip out on it yeah i sent a picture to your dude with my son rapping in prison there it is right there oh he raps yeah he raps he's a badass rapper yeah no this is a crazy situation because in prison it's real racy you know yeah and i would imagine american greed did a show on me american greed you know yeah they did yeah Yeah, episode 46, right?

1:39:36Early in the American Greed days. And so me and my son are in prison together watching American Greed, and they played one of his songs on TV, right? So all the brothers heard him rapping, and they do shows in prison, like on the holidays. You know, that's how Johnny Cash came in there and jammed. So Johnny Cash didn't come here, but on July 4th, the brothers were doing a concert, you know? Well, like on Fridays, you know, the brothers would do stuff on I think it's like a red, white, and black thing just like that, right? and so they came to him and they said, hey man, we heard you on TV man, like rapping, because we were like prison celebrities in there, right?

1:40:15because we were on TV and then I was from Chicago and y 'all were printing money yeah, we were like the coolest cats so you guys were in prison together? yeah, we were cellies together what are you talking about? that little boy, 18 years old it was nuts you and him were cellmates for going to jail for counterfeiting together. Yeah, so after my dad died and I get out, man, long story short, my son and me, we were not really getting along, right? He's being a tough kid. His mom can't take care of him because she's a cop. She can't have that shit in her house. And we connect through music, you know?

1:40:49Like, he was a real good musician, you know? And he was only, like, at that time, like 13. And so I knew Johnny K, who, he had groove sounds, and he did, like, Disturbed, Fall Out Boys. those guys came out of Chicago. It was his studio, and that was my dude. Okay, he's a producer? Big producer, big time. You know, he did Disturb, Fall Out Boy. Yeah, I don't know a lot of producers in that area, but understood. Yeah, so we would hang out at his studio. Okay, got it. And then my boy's at this badass studio, you know, and they're letting him rap in there and make beats in there and just do some really cool shit.

1:41:22And he had talent. Johnny was like, hey, man, this kid, you know, this is before there were any other white rappers besides Eminem. Got it. Right? and uh and so he made some songs he made four songs and then started getting expensive my boy was like hey look it let's keep it going but you you gotta throw me a little something right because it's not like now where you could have a home studio you know got big boards and so that's what brought me back into printing because I was like okay you know what I'm gonna make as much money as I'm gonna do one big blast and I'm gonna help my son make it you know and uh yeah there's artists now that i think their parents are helping to make it i think oh no yeah well i knew a lot of people plus i was you know so it just needed this yeah the money you know so the only way i knew how to do it was you know at that point i was working out at the at a shipyard and you know the river rat running up and down the river pushing barges and shit so i was i was done with the work in myself anyway you know you're ready to try one more go at it i was ready i was like let's do it you know and then i got my did you convince him or he convinced you at first i didn't even let him know it was on me you know like this was my thing you know oh so you were gonna make a money you're gonna make some money anyway yeah yeah i was already at that point but this was a perfect reason to do it too because he needed money for his career yeah for his career yeah so anyway now but at this point man all the technologies changed they had scrapped all the freaking presses you know they had what year is this ah that was like 2003 2000 yeah about 2004 okay because i I went to prison in the end of 2005, 2006.

1:42:51Got it. But it was hard to get the equipment. Now, at this time, you got to hook up the internet to use Photoshop. You can't just pop in the CD anymore. So I pretty much spent time hustling all the equipment up and getting it ready to go. And me and my brother broke into the paper place. We actually cut off. We're probably the only idiots to break into a paper company. Yeah. Like, we cut a hole in the thing. We're like in a rope. Really? It was nuts. man and what's really nuts about it the paper company only closed one day a year one day a year guess what day that was christmas fucking christmas we watched it so on christmas you and your brother broke into the paper company yeah it was the best we got onto it we cut a hole in the ceiling in the in the tin metal it was on christmas we blowed ourself down we actually got into a fight in there because they had these big uh potato sacks right and these these rolls were massive, right?

1:43:45Like I had always got little butt rolls, right? You know, but the real roll was massive and weighed thousands of pounds and they were stacked up real high. So me and my brother had to, we had to scale all the way up to the thing. And then we're sitting here with our legs up in the air and we're pushing the roll off the thing. And when it hit, it cracked the concrete. And then me, like a madman, when we get down, when you cut the roll, it makes a snap, boom, them real loud, right? Because that's tight, you know? And I was stuffing the potato sacks, and I had about 10 big potato sacks stuffed, but I couldn't stop.

1:44:22I kept stuffing and kept stuffing. My brother grabbed me. He's like, bro, we got to go. We got enough. We got enough to make 10 million. And I'm like, there's never enough. And then we're getting into it. And finally, he's like, well, I'm leaving you here, man. I'm out of here. Anyway, he waited for me, But we got all the paper. We had everything ready. Damn. And then one day, I had just spoke. This is what was crazy. Now they're doing, they just did a Rolling Stone thing on me. I was in Rolling Stone magazine, right? So you were doing public speaking? I was doing public speaking. About being a counterfeiter?

1:44:54Counterfeiter, as I'm counterfeiting. This is what was so bizarre about it. It's addiction, really. Addiction. It's all addiction. Couldn't stop. Well, they flew me out to Rochester, right? Document Security Systems. It was a check company. And so they wanted me to speak at some conference, and I thought it was a corporate Czech conference, right? I fly out there to Rochester, and I got the same assistant that Frank Abigail had, right? Frank Abigail was the Czech guy from Catch Me If You Can. Well, he had retired, and so they wanted me to step in his place, right? So the security company was trying to get you to come and work for them.

1:45:27Yeah, yeah. It was a Czech security. They wanted me to, you know, they would send me products. ADP? No, it was. It was Document Security Systems, DSS. and they but you're still doing crime at this point I am yeah they don't know right they don't know so you get there and what happens so I get there man and I'm sitting in the hotel bar with the assistant and I'm looking around and I'm like man everyone in here looks like a cop right and I ask her I'm like hey isn't this like a corporate check security thing she goes no this is a homeland security conference for fraud I'm like well what do you mean like everyone in here is an agent she's like yeah these are all federal agents I'm like what I wanted to run out the door man And I couldn't believe it.

1:46:05I was like, oh, this can't be happening. This cannot be real. Did you speak at the conference? Yeah, yeah. But it was not easy, though. I'll tell you what happened. So here it is. I don't even really drink much, man, right? But I'm pounding whiskeys, right? Yeah, sounds like it. I'm pounding. I get to the room. She was worried about me. She's like, you're going to be all right? I'm like, yeah, man, I'm all right. I'm just glad finally at some point in the story that somebody was worried about you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what I'm saying? We got to have somebody be worried about us. Well, you know, I got people now that love me, man.

1:46:36It's not good. It all worked out. For sure, but this is the first time I'd heard you say that in all of this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, my mama always did. Oh, she did? Yeah, mama was always there. But so anyway, so here I'm at the conference, and I go up to the room. She wakes me up at like 6 in the morning telling me what to not eat, what to eat, what I can eat, you know. What's she worried about you dying for? Did she get to speak that day? Yeah, that morning. I was the first speaker. Don't want you being nervous. Yeah, she don't want me being nervous. Got it. I was the first speaker. It was 8 o 'clock in the morning, right?

1:47:04So I go into the hall where it's all set up, and I walk into the front, and I'm looking at who's speaking. It was the guy that caught the son of Sam was speaking that day too, right? The serial killer. It was pretty cool, man, actually. But I'm, like, nervous. My stomach is just ripped, man, right? And I'm looking, like, who's coming in? And I'm thinking to myself, oh, man, it's 8 in the morning. They're not going to be here. Maybe 10, 20, 15. not too many people are going to show up so i'll be all right yeah it fit a thousand people all right literally man i'm not kidding like that hall stayed empty till like two minutes before eight yeah i thought i won it was only like just a few people and i'm like oh yeah they're still sleeping this is their vacation they're not going to be getting up at eight in the morning to watch some counterfeiter, right?

1:47:55Man, bro, like in a matter of like two minutes, man, it started filling up and the whole place was packed. All agents with their badges. And I start sweating. Like I'm sick. I don't know if they, I don't know if they know what I've done back in Chicago. Right. I don't know. I'm thinking, man, am I being set up? Do they know? Are they playing games with me? Are they like, my brain was rattling. Right. And, and so she gives me some water she sees me sweating I said man I gotta go to the bath so they hooked me up they put the thing the mic on me getting ready to go and I'm looking around it's loud you know and everyone's sitting down and um and the in the in the present the present the the guy that was presenting everybody he came up he goes hey you all right he goes you know let's test the mic and you know we're about I'm this is how I'm gonna do this I'm gonna say this and this and I'm gonna call you up okay I'm like all right cool you know I said can I can I use the bathroom real quick and uh she's like yeah it's right out the door so I go out to the bathroom and I and I just start throwing up I'm in the bathroom just throwing up there was a door that went outside I kind of stumbled out the bathroom went outside and I'm talking to myself I'm like what the fuck is wrong with you what are you doing you fucking man like I'm really like insane talking to myself and they can hear you and they fucking heard me she comes out she comes running out she goes dude dude she grabs the thing she goes we're we're canceling this you're not gonna you're not speaking and and i'm like what do you mean she's like they've listened to everything you just said right now i killed them all remember that guy he's like i killed i killed them all who was that guy they heard everything i was talking about what the fuck am i doing so i said i said no man we're not gonna cancel this man we're not gonna cancel it so i walked back in went in there we're not gonna cancel well that's the problem with me i'm stubborn dog right like that's the reason i ended up make the money i did robert durst muttered killed them all of course like so so i go back in there and it's silence now and they're all staring at me you asked the first question you asked me how does it feel when people are staring at you and all that stuff you were talking about yeah like the moon yeah like the like the moon yeah that's what i was going through right that's what it felt like and and i they walked me up to the front the presenter he starts then he calls me up there's no way you got through it oh listen this it was awesome actually i get up there and i look and i freeze like i'm frozen for sure like i can't move dog right and there was a there was an older woman that had this silver hair i'll never forget her she was about 15 rows in and she just lip lipped it uh you're gonna be all right i could read her lips it was weird she goes you're gonna be all right that's what she kept saying like and and then i then i just came out of it i said you know i'm i'm a little froze right now it's the first time i've ever been in a room with this many agents usually i'm getting hauled off to jail and they all laughed okay right and once they laughed then i just started like going in with everything and it was amazing i ended up speaking for like 45 minutes i took questions for like 30 minutes they ended up sitting me next they sit me at the head table next to the Homeland Security secretary, right?

1:51:08And we were joking about how he was making fake IDs when he was in high school. And so what looked to be terrible, right? Turned out to be amazing. But I had to go back to Chicago and I was still printing money. I was going to anyway, but now I'm having second thoughts. There was all kinds of things going on when I was flying back to the city. I was like, man, am I really going to do this? When I actually got this opportunity right here that maybe could actually take care of me you know right and when I get home you know my son's being whatever and I do a few things and when I come back to the house he's printing money 20s we get into he's one of his friends we get into it he runs out I run out after him you know I'm trying to tell him he don't have to do this and he throws the money at me while while a cop is passing by yeah yeah and the cop gets out I'm trying to pick the money up off the ground and the cop, I tell the cop my name and right away, boom.

1:52:08And it was over. Right. They called the secret, he arrested me, called the secret service. Secret service was toying with me actually, because they, they were like, you know, we know this is your son's money and all this. Like, we're not, we're not looking at you. But I had some, I had some of that old money that I got busted with, you know, from that was buried. And I played with it a little bit and, and, and and it popped, right? And they knew. And so they pulled me in, and they said, we know what you're doing. We know you got a whole new place, and you got paper, and you got the ink, and we're about to get you, man.

1:52:43You're going down for the rest of your life. Because if you get busted with the presses and the files and the plates and stuff, you're done. Got it for sure. Yeah, you're done, right? So what happened is they ended up, they said they knew where it was at. They took me in, and my boys let me know what happened. I wasn't there, but they literally had helicopters and SWAT teams and they fucking busted in my space. But what happened though is three weeks before that, the old man that owned the building, Rick and Benny, he owns Rick and Benny's, it's a bread shop. He's dead now, but he had sold it.

1:53:18It was an old warehouse, old dingy warehouse. And he had sold it before this happened and told me that I had to get all my shit out of there. So the Secret Service, yeah, they knew that I was there, but they didn't hit me. I don't know why they waited. And so I ended up moving everything out because he told me to move everything. And then he had a cleaner come in and clean everything. So when they kicked in the door, there was nothing in there. It was insane. Nothing. I wouldn't be sitting here right now if there was. Yeah. And they were messing with me. They're like, we got you now. We got you.

1:53:49We're going in. And there was nothing. The press was gone. The paper was gone. Ink was gone. Everything was gone. It was, it was so like. Blessed and cursed, bro. It's kind of like this perfect mix, bro. Perfect mix, man. But, but did you have to testify against your son or anything like that? No, no. He didn't even go to jail. So how do you and your son end up in jail together? So after this happens, they kick in the doors, whatever. I go ahead and take the beef, right? I got probably the shortest paragraph federal indictment in history literally one paragraph right they give me seven years 105 months i go down my son's left he's 15 well he kept doing it right he he got he's smart kid right he's seen some of the stuff he gets the paper he's like he's getting everything my brother's still out there playing with him so him and my brother whatever right and i'm in prison and i'm gone for like three years now were you able to help give him advice and suggestions about it from prison no no we didn't really talk much you know that was it you know i didn't see him at all i saw him three years later so what happens is i get a call i call home and my sister says hey you need to call karen the day my son turned 18 the secret service went and arrested him as soon as he became an adult they pretty much let him play money man right because they're like the discharge is not that good if you're a kid yeah you're a kid nothing's gonna happen as soon as he hit 18 they kicked he His story, he got a crazy story how they grabbed him, but he was on the run a little bit and they grabbed him finally.

1:55:20And so I caught my sister tells me what's going on. And and he gets sentenced to I think it was like 36 months. So now I'm already been gone for three years. Now he's 18 and they ship them to Forest City, Arkansas. I'm in Big Spring, Texas at a real shithole. I've been trying to get out of there and they end up transferring me from there to Forest City. wow yeah and it was crazy because when i got there i knew he was there i knew he was there right so as soon as i went through processing you know go through all that shit all day as soon as i hit the hit the dorm some of the white guys came up to me hey you know what's your name i told him he's like oh your son's here and i'm like yeah i know and i need to see him as soon as i hit the yard tomorrow right they were like shit you don't have to wait till the yard your son's in the dorm i'm like what he's like yeah he's he's here in this dorm he's in tv room right now damn i'm like what so i haven't seen my son for three years right and i i i beeline to the to the uh the tv room and when i opened up the the the tv door and he was sitting right there on the front thing looking up at the tv with his little headphones on and when he seen me man he just he just he got up and just ran straight to me man i'm tearing up because my boy's in prison so as happy as I am to see him, I'm devastated inside that he's here.

1:56:45Both y 'all are there. Yeah, just devastated. Well, I can handle me. My life's been hell. I don't want him going through it, you know? And this is what was cool, though, man. Here it is, some of the hardest cats, man, in this TV room, and it's just pure silence. And you see this guy crying over there, and this guy crying over there, and that guy crying over there. Like, people were thinking they're their kids, and they're seeing me and my son just embracing. I just held them, man. Damn. And that's where I learned to become a dad, man. The next two and a half years, man, I started, I've been painting.

1:57:17I paint, you know? And so in prison, that's what I did. And then my son was music, so he was writing lyrics. And so our plan was, yeah, that's me in prison with one of my first pieces, you know? And so the plan, the grandmaster plan was, you know, that he was going to do music and I was going to do art, you know? And, um, And so, you know, when I got out in 2013, I got out a month before him. They wouldn't let us out together. The counselor said, we're going to let you out first so you can get yourself situated. Then we're going to let your son out. Okay. And so when I got out, you know, I had an unbelievable community around me.

1:58:02You know, like when I got out, my attorneys were there. My friends were there. They got me a job. They got me a place. They got me a car. I had to go through my struggles. It wasn't easy, you know? And then my son got out and he ended up getting his CDL and then he started driving a trash truck. Now he's doing amazing. He's been out 13 years. We've both been out 13 years now. He just bought his first house. Yeah, it's amazing. He just had a baby. You know, he's doing amazing. He's writing new music now. His music is freaking awesome. Like he's really getting down on his music. And then me, you know, I went through the art thing you know I first two years out I almost actually went back to printing he busted me he busted me with some with some chemicals and your son did yeah yeah so like two years after this he said this ain't it yeah I well it just like it was a bunch of things like I I you know I I just met someone was about to have a baby you know and it just felt like deja vu all again right yeah and so I ended up walking away from it and um and I ended up one a big time cat in Chicago his name's Joe Cacciatore he owns he owns Lakeside Bank he took me under his wing and he said look man I don't want you to go back to prison man I want to show you how to make it you know and uh and damn here it is 13 years later you know and I've had five galleries I've had unbelievable shows from Rose Royce to Satai I've got to meet some of the most amazing people and you know just Life has been so fucking awesome, man.

1:59:26A better community, too. It just shows you what a community can do for us, bro. What a community can do, man, really. What about, tell me about, like, when you look at, like, crime and the effect that it's had, like, on your family overall. Like, what do you think about that? I mean, for me, like, what I, because I've mentored guys getting out of prison. I speak at schools. I've spoke at schools, you know, to talk about how to overcome stuff, whether it's mental illness, whether it's drugs, whether it's crime, right? Because crime can be addictive too. Yeah, I'd never thought of it as an addiction until I spoke with you about it.

2:00:00And it almost seems like a familial addiction too. They say it's worse than heroin, counterfeiting. If you looked it up, I think it says that counterfeiting is more addictive than heroin. Wow, bring that up? Yeah, there's something on it. You know, for me, it's like it's... So I have a few cats that I've kept in touch with that I was in prison with. Yeah. But sadly, almost, you know, 78 % of people go back. Small percentage of us that make it out. There's even a smaller percentage that make it into something really big. You know, so what I've done with my art, with my life and with, you know, is very unusual.

2:00:40Right. Well, that part I get. Yeah. But do you think, what effect do you think that crime had like on just like your, like, you know what I'm saying? Because you had it, it's very wild that you had this happen in your own father-son relationship and then had it in the second generation of it. Well, here's the thing. The crime actually, the streets, it's even deeper than the crime. It's the whole aspect of the streets and the mental illness with my mom. Those things, I think, allow me, they've taught me how to deal with shit now, right? Right. Like like before what would happen, the reason I would always go back to the crime is because the stress.

2:01:17Right. Of being able to survive. Right. I need to eat. I need shoes. I need to take care of my kid. Like people have these stresses. Everyone does. Right. Some people deal with it differently. Right. Me, I was trained since from the first time breaking into the meters. I was the training was to just like an animal to hunt. Right. You'd learn that. Yeah, I learned that. That's what, that's where, you know, and so there, there wasn't like, there wasn't the guilt, there wasn't the shame, there wasn't that part of it, but the crime in the streets and everything I went through, it's made me now like aware, like I see through a lot of things that other people don't see.

2:01:57But looking back, do you think, yeah, do you have like, was there any situations that you caused like by passing all that fake money? Like, did it ruin some people's business or anything like that? Did you have to make any, like, amends with that sort of situation? No. The more of the amends that I needed to make was with my son, you know, and my kids and the people that relied on me that I, you know, I wasn't there for, right? Like, even when I went back for seven years, you know, Natalie still had the three babies down in Austin, you know? and I didn't even know I didn't even get to to meet the young one for till like four years later wow and so the things that I regret are are more family you know I I would I I didn't sell drugs and I wasn't into all the other stuff you know so for me the money was almost like well they're doing it shit you know like why can't I you know and and then I was always doing good with it so whether that was to justify me doing or not I just I didn't ever feel that guilt for it you know Did anyone ever come to you and say Hey you passed this much fake money with me And this is a problem No no no no I've had people come to say hey man I got one of your bills And I loved it right like people Even now there's a couple people in the city That had some of them that actually Framed them Are they still in circulation I don't know maybe you know the money was good If you even have one will you send it to me so I can have one I will I actually brought you one No you did not I brought you 100, but not one of them.

2:03:30I brought you something, though. No, I mean, it was a wild time, man. You know, and then like. Oh, yeah, here we go. Yes, counterfeiting money can become a psychological or behavioral addiction. While it's not classified as a substance addiction, criminologists and psychologists recognize that the process of committing high-stakes financial fraud can trigger the exact same neurological reward pathways as gambling, stealing, or substance abuse. The high of counterfeiting comes from the combination of chemical rush of the crime, the artistic obsession and the illusion of ultimate control dang bro that sounds like some shit i would love to do but i just wasn't brave enough you know i did that fucking nose crime baby yeah yeah yeah cocaine yeah no the money man like even now so when i i i print sheets of money right now like but it's for work right it's for your art it's canvas and i paint over it but i still get that same when when i see that sheet coming out and i could do it legal like it just warms my i just get like all giddy man do you think that people should be allowed to counterfeit money no no no no no no no well because money's just like a so it's like a kind of a social construct that we have it's like this you know well see the thing about money you know like my my my my things were i think we should be allowed to keep more of it so so i think that we're taxed too much right i agree you're taxed on what you do you're taxed on what you buy you're taxed on your car you're taxed on this like before the 1900s there was no tax right Right.

2:04:53And so like there was like even me, I love to barter. I barter a lot, man. I trade paintings for cars, for this, for that. I love to barter. Right. So so like should people be allowed to print? No, neither should have I. I mean, it was wrong. You know, these days it's like our government is just printing money. They're just siphoning money out. Like they give they're giving money away to these different like. I think they gave up. I think they gave up. I think that they knew that this thing's going to collapse. The society, you mean? Well, the financial system that they set up. It's$40 trillion in the hole, man.

2:05:27Like, you can't. There's no way to get out of it. Right. Impossible. Right? And they know that. And so, like, for me, I look at it. I analyze it. Like, I think they gave up already. There's going to have to be a reset. There's going to have to be some sort of, and that's what the digital dollar is going to be. Right? It's going to be a reset. I just hate that it's going to be programmable. Right? That's what they need to get rid of. What do you mean when you say that? Well, if you look it up, digital currency, have them look it up. It's all programmable, which means they can say, hey, you can't buy gas on Tuesdays.

2:05:55And guess what? Your card will not work on Tuesdays. So it's programmable. They could give it directions. If they have certain coins, they are. But Bitcoin isn't necessarily programmable, right? Bitcoin ain't, but the digital dollar will be. Okay, got it. A U.S. digital dollar is a proposed central bank digital currency that would be issued and backed directly by the Federal Reserve as a digital form of physical cash. Government backed, unlike decentralized cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or private stable coins, a CBDC, the central bank digital currency, would be official legal tender backed by the U.S.

2:06:32government. It would represent a direct digital liability of the Federal Reserve available to the general public. Wow. Ask if it's programmable. They don't want to tell you that part. Just put it in there. Is it programmable? Because it for sure is. And that's the thing that people need to be asking questions about. Is it programmable? Whether a U.S. digital dollar would be programmable is one of the most heavily debated aspects of its potential design. And the Federal Reserve has explicitly stated it would oppose making it programmable. For retail users. For retail users. So what are you saying that means?

2:07:02So what happens is that just like they got these cars coming out where they could turn them off, right? They'll be able to turn your money off really easy, like easier than it's ever been in human history. So throughout human history, it started with bartering and then coins and then paper, right? The human has always had the ability to trade something for something, right? And you can do it in a private setting or a public setting, right? with this there will be no more private ever that's gone and some people say well if you're not doing anything wrong but what happens is is you can see through time that laws change where you thought it wasn't wrong this day is not wrong this day right and that's where this gets dangerous because like explain it to me a little bit better where you think it's kind of like the uh the truckers that were in canada that were protested and then the canadian government turned their accounts off got it right i'm sure you remember that yeah and it's just like kanye west when he was like speaking out against um i don't know exactly what it was but i don't know if it was like jewish people or it's just some things he said or things about the record industry at some point they cut off some of his oh yeah debank you and all yeah they debanked him yeah this they won't have to debank you they'll just turn it off it's just programmable ai is not being too honest right now about this because it's saying it possibly because these cats here they don't tell you the truth all the time and and but there's the engineers believe me they're putting the programmables in the digital dollar.

2:08:30Would the digital dollar then be counterfeitable or no? It's a good question. We could try. We could try, man. I would love to try. We can't use paint on this, though. No, we just have to figure out how to break into the system. But, no, I mean, here's the thing. I hope that you'll have the states that pass, like Florida's, passed laws where you can't refuse cash, you know. but in other countries you see all these kids are raised on their phone paying with their phone that's crazy to me I see that and I'm like I don't even like to have my phone on me and you're letting it do everything for you from your money to your life to your social media to your dating we've just gotten so addicted we've gotten so used to it I think it's hard to separate that and I think a lot of people don't realize the depth of the surveillance, you know?

2:09:25Well, now they got flat cameras going up. They got, you know, I mean, it's getting really interesting, you know? And, you know, for me, because I was a ghost, I pay attention to that stuff real carefully, you know? Not because I'm doing anything wrong. It's because I want to be free. Yeah. At the end of the day, you know, this is what I look at this country, you know, like, I love this country. I've been on every road that there is probably, right? I've been in so many towns in this country, man. And I've watched the middle part of the country just disappear, right? Where there was a time where I would drive through a town and it looked a little bit alive.

2:10:00And then five years later, drove through it and it had boarded up windows and everything, right? We've seen the same. And that's sad. Yeah. Oh, it's heartbreaking. Well, it's just like, yeah, it feels like our government has just sold everything out that was good from here. It's like they've let it, like, just let it be siphoned out. Yeah, I think they gave up. I think they gave up. or were they, I mean, it seems a lot more like they were. Well, they were siphoning. Now they gave up, right? Now they're looking like, oh, just let's get what we can. It's going to get reset. The digital dollar divide, right here it says, the anti-CBDC act would bar the Federal Reserve from issuing, piloting, or implementing any digital currency designed for general public use.

2:10:41The bill's supporters led by Representatives Tom Emmer, French Hill. uh well this is awesome that they're filing a bill for this this is the first let me see this site risks of government surveillance and programmable money pointing to china's digital yuan as a cautionary example of state control over individual financial behavior banking industry groups argue that retail cbdcs would enable consumers to bypass commercial banks entirely potentially destabilizing credit intermediation i so china already does it They do the programmable, right? But if that becomes here, then it's like, yeah, if you didn't spend your money appropriately, it would just be cut off.

2:11:21Or also - Yeah, no more buying cocaine. Right. Which is good for me. Which is good for me. But also, if you spend a money where they don't like it or you're paying for a service that they don't like, they could cut your money off. If it's something that they deem that isn't right, or if you're even paying to see, say you're paying to see a speaker that says things that the government doesn't like yeah they could they could cut your money off yeah it's terrible man i mean that's super scary yeah no it's you know like but you know my hope is is like you know well the good thing is i'm learning how to create currency with my art right like so so now that i'm an artist you know like i it's been 13 years 10 years professional artists you know the first time it you know that i got into the industry was when I met Arnold Schwarzenegger.

2:12:09I got to go out to his house and have a show. Sold a bunch of art. It was badass, man. I mean, here I am two years out of prison. Shit ain't working. Can't get nothing going. You know, the catch there, me and Arnold right there. And here it is. I feel like I'm about to go back to printing. Catch Torrey kind of, you know, scoops me in. I worked for him a little while. And then I ended up going to Florida. I remember you telling me about some of this and being in a show. Yeah, I was in a show. Before we get into something else, let me just, I want to go a little bit further about like, because like Bitcoin is like, because say something is a money, right?

2:12:48It's just because we all agree that money has value, right? Like if tomorrow everybody just agreed it didn't have value, then it wouldn't. it wouldn't and and that goes for a lot of things like and i and i i i reference art because like really what does how do i sell a painting for 10 grand that i sold for a thousand five years ago right right how do i do that how do i make it valuable right and it's the same thing with paper and actually in on the old money the 1800s money it looks like little pieces of art and the reason they did that is because them old timers didn't want to give up their gold right so they had to make the paper look valuable, right?

2:13:26So if you look at this money, man, some of this stuff is beautiful, right? Look at the educational series, the 1896 educational series. I mean, that thing is just unbelievable. And so they had to make this stuff look valuable, and then they made gold illegal, right? To get the old timers to give up the gold. Like, look at this stuff. That's a$5 bill. You see that? Nobody's seen no$5 bill like that. Look how beautiful that is. It looks like a piece of art yeah right so they they it's it's all about really kind of trickery a little bit a little psyop right you you you you give the and then the way they created the system right the system for us really kicked in after world war ii right that's when they really created the financial structure right uh how america would loan money to different countries and then they would buy goods and then it would create this system right but what happened is they just dug too deep into it right i mean it could have been an unbelievable system right but then people started manipulating things that happen in certain countries there's sort of this i mean we just had a guy on who was talking about uh secret societies that like manipulate things at a higher level way higher so now this country has to like we have immigrants that are going from here because we cause starvation here or we stopped we we put a like a fuel uh uh embargo here and so now this country is going to behave like this.

2:14:45And so it's like, and they're all betting on that at a higher level. I want to, I want to get this point out there. Franklin, uh, president Franklin Roosevelt signed executive order 6102 on April 5th, 1933, which largely outlawed the private ownership of gold coin bullion and certificates in the United States. The great depression, widespread bank failures caused citizens to hoard gold, shrinking the circulating money supply. so but then when they bought it back sorry but when they bought it back from them i know that they bought it they made everybody kind of give their gold and then they sold it back to them at a cheaper uh at a cheaper rate yeah let me see that americans had to turn in their gold to a federal reserve bank by may 1st 1933 the government paid citizens 20.67 dollars per troy ounce of gold yeah 10 years in prison if you didn't do it yeah is that what it says violations violations carry penalties of up to a ten thousand dollar fine or 10 years in prison and then in january 1934 fdr raised the official price of gold to 35 dollars per ounce increasing the treasury's value and deval and devaluing the dollar so they gave 20 and they raised 35 i mean that's crazy Money, like I look at how they changed, like when they changed the bill to the new purple thing, like that really was fascinating to me that I was able to create something that caused them to change the whole system, you know?

2:16:12Are you sure that that was the cause of it? Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah, they needed the paper, you know? The paper, there was too many people doing it, you know? They had to fix it. They had to fix it, you know? but you know and and soon you know like like you i i look at my art kind of like historic art because soon there won't be currency soon there won't be paper currency you know right and so for me it's almost like i'm i'm preserving history through my pieces that every piece i make that it's it's going to be historical because a lot of it's printed on actual money oh yeah yeah i print yeah i love to print yeah maybe one time you're in town i'll print with you there you go there's a sheet of money bro yeah yeah i'll give you one i'll give you a little one dog yeah but i paint right over it man i love it you know and look at that now now this sheet on dang that's just popping oh no it's awesome man i love it yeah so so i still get to print you know like yeah it's just it's just awesome that i get to do it but you know soon soon currency will be gone you know and it'll be digital and it's going to be an interesting time in humanity like big time like it's going to get, it's going to get like, I get more nervous about that than AI.

2:17:20I think AI is kind of a little bit of hoaxy because the shit don't really work well. Yeah, I agree. The shit's capped. And the data centers are good for the robots. I'm telling you, they're making that shit for the robots. Oh, the data centers just, I think it's to store a lot of information from all the surveillance information. When you think about activating surveillance and how they're, what they're going to need. I think there's a lot of, I think there's a lot of future stuff that's going to be super scary and I don't know if we're ready for it, but we don't have a choice, but to go into it it doesn't look like because it doesn't look like anything is going to save us or you can move to a country that doesn't have it you know like you bringing it to people so they understand it so we could go into it the right way right like it really is about just information like teaching the people the things where they can make a choice to make this world better right like and that's what's awesome about podcasts now because you guys get to actually inform people about things that are happening so that maybe it could change like to have hope i want to have hope that even if they change the money, even if they have surveillance, that somehow humans will find a way to thrive.

2:18:19Yeah. Right? We need a new male gifts. We need a new patriot, you know? New patriot, yeah. We need a new patriot. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But Art Williams, you have your studio now. People can find it online. It's in Chicago. Yeah, I got JuliusDeVinci.com. I got - JuliusDeVinci.com? Yeah, and then I got ArthurJWilliamsJr.com, my name. And then I got a gallery in Chicago on Clark and Diversity. and just started showing other artists, which is kind of cool. Oh, that's cool stuff. Yeah, I like to go see art. Yeah, you got to come to the gallery, man. You'll dig it, man. Yeah, I would love to. I got a printing press there.

2:18:54Do you? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, I got a printing press there. Oh, one thing I wanted to go into real quick. Can you look up, Trevon, what are the top things that can be counterfeited? Clothes, bags. Okay. Medications are a big thing. The 10 most counterfeited products in the world. Let's see them. Food products. Food. Oh, that's 10. I think that food products and well-known brands of food could be counterfeited, but that is increasingly the case, especially as food prices around the world continue to rise. Man, that's an interesting one. Yeah, that's an interesting one, huh? And companies charge a premium for their brands, whether it be coffee, chocolate, or fruit.

2:19:29For example, in Canada, the most popular and profitable coffee store chain is named Tim Hortons after a hockey player. However, in South Korea, people are sold Tim Hortons coffee, which is a blatant knockoff of the popular Canadian caffeine product. Oh, wow. Designer labels, tags, that's pretty obvious Computers Computers, I wouldn't have thought that But I guess it makes sense Because you do hear people like on Facebook Marketplace and stuff Like I went to buy this computer and it was capped Pharmaceutical drugs Movies still Fake pills Oh, movies, yeah, like in third world countries Sneakers and shoes, that makes sense Smartphones Jewelry Jewelry and accessories Money's not even on there Watches for sure, handbags, purses, wallets no money no money man I gotta get money on there yeah yeah figure out the digital you'll figure it out nah I'm done I'm retired man look Art Williams man thanks so much dude for hanging out thanks so much for just telling us about your story congrats on I mean in the end you were kind of just an artist man yeah really you know and not just an artist but yeah an artist that went through some shit well yeah if you're an artist and you're locked and you're stuck in like criminal type shit then of course you're gonna to start your art and criminal type shit.

2:20:42And these days, dude, everybody should be able to make their own fucking money. You know what I'm saying? If the government's just printing that shit and just handing it out. We could give classes. Yeah. Dude, it might not be a bad idea. Crazy Theo Vaughn making money classes, man. Hey, TBD, man. Yeah, yeah, I love it. And you have a book. I don't want to forget The Last Counterfeiter. Art, man, thank you so much, dude. Yeah, I appreciate this, man. It's been awesome, brother. Yeah, I appreciate it. Tell Pennelly I said what's up. Yeah, I will. Yeah, we can. And I feel I'm falling like these leaves.

2:21:14I must be cornerstone. Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this peace of mind. I found I can feel it in my bones. But it's going to tell you.

2:21:34I'm Glenn Washington, host of Snap Judgment, the award-winning storytelling podcast from KQED. Every week, Snap deals a new card, like the girl whose sister was a monkey, or the man who lived in the woods for 30 years, or even the woman who snuck her lover out of prison in a dog crate. Pick a card, any card. Tap to listen now to Snap Judgment from KQED on Spotify.