Presidential Protection Unit 3: Financial Crimes Foundations: Counterfeit, Fraud, and Electronic Crimes

School: Minister Destiny Testimony Schools Track: Law Enforcement — Professional Training Wing: Presidential Protection (Secret Service) Unit: 3 of 4 (self-paced) Tier: Public — open to all students Founded and presented by: Muslim Ordained Minister Destiny Marie Morgan

A note on what this school is: this is community-designed training — Minister Destiny's program. It is not agency policy and does not replace Secret Service training or the law. Where this program proposes new approaches, they are taught and labeled as proposals. Nothing here is legal advice. This track contains NO protective-operations content of any kind — it teaches the Service's published history, law, and prevention research. Rank in this school is a school achievement only — not a job rank, title, or credential. This unit is compiled from public sources; it is not classified material, and this school holds no security-clearance content.

Before you start

• This school never collects your name. Progress and quiz answers stay on your device; pass the unit quiz (80% or higher, retakes allowed, answers are not shown) and your certificate downloads with a blank name line to fill in after saving.
• Unit 1 told you the Service was founded to defend the dollar. This unit puts that defense in your own hands: how to check a banknote the way the government's public education teaches it, how payment fraud and cyber-enabled theft actually reach ordinary people, and exactly where a victim reports. Nothing here teaches how any crime is committed. It teaches how crimes are recognized, refused, and reported — the citizen's half of the Service's oldest mission.

The lesson

1. Know Your Money: checking a note the public way

For generations the Secret Service's public counterfeit education traveled under the name "Know Your Money"; its modern home is the U.S. Currency Education Program at uscurrency.gov, run with the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. The public method rests on one principle: rely on the security features built into genuine notes, not on a single gadget. Counterfeit-detection pens, the government's guidance warns, are not always accurate and can give false results. Your fingers, your eyes, and a light are the primary instruments.

The program teaches three moves — feel, tilt, and check with light. Feel the paper. Genuine currency paper has a distinctive texture, and the printing leaves the ink slightly raised, so a genuine note feels subtly rough to the touch, especially over the portrait. Most counterfeits are printed flat on ordinary stock and feel wrong before they look wrong — smooth, flimsy, or waxy. Tilt the note. On current notes, the numeral in the lower right corner is printed in color-shifting ink that changes — on modern designs, from copper to green — as the angle changes. The redesigned $100 adds a blue 3-D security ribbon woven into the paper, with images of bells and 100s that appear to move, and a color-changing bell in an inkwell. A flat, unchanging numeral is a warning by itself. Check with light. Hold the note up and look for two features embedded in the paper. The watermark — a faint image matching the portrait — should be visible from both front and back. The security thread — a thin embedded strip naming the denomination — should appear in its published position and glow its designated color under ultraviolet light. A note whose watermark shows a different face than its printed portrait, or that has no thread, has told you what it is.

Add three habits that cost nothing. Look at the portrait and borders: genuine engraving is sharp, its fine lines clear and unbroken, while counterfeits often look flat or smudged. Find the microprinting — tiny words cheap printing turns into a smear. And learn the "Quick Glance" campaign, built for prop and replica notes: glance at any note you receive, look for foreign writing, and for the words "For Motion Picture Use Only" or "Replica" on the note itself — a two-second glance defeats it. One last fact: all designs of U.S. currency, however old, remain legal tender — an old note is not fake for being old, and a redesigned note is not suspicious for being new.

2. If a note fails the check: the victim's correct moves

Sooner or later, a cashier, a seller, or a grandmother at a yard sale will hold a note that fails. The public guidance is consistent, and the order matters. Do not pass it on. Knowingly spending a note you believe is counterfeit is itself a federal crime. Accept the hard part honestly: a counterfeit note cannot be exchanged for a genuine one and is not reimbursed — whoever holds it when it is detected bears the loss. That rule is why the checks in Section 1 belong at the moment money changes hands, not after.

Handle the note as little as possible and keep it separate from genuine currency, in an envelope or bag. Write down what you remember about who passed it: a description of the person, companions, a vehicle or plate if you saw one, the time, the place, and what was bought — memory fades within hours, and a note written at the register is evidence. Do not confront or accuse the passer beyond what your employer's procedures and your safety allow; many passers received the note innocently themselves, and your role is preservation and reporting, not arrest.

Report it. Notify your local police department or your nearest Secret Service field office, and follow the current instructions at uscurrency.gov/report-counterfeit. Banks and businesses follow their own submission procedures — suspected notes move to the Secret Service through established channels, historically documented on form SSF 1604 — and individuals should follow the instructions the reporting page and the receiving officer give them. If you run a register, learn your workplace's procedure before the day arrives, and teach the feel-tilt-light check at hiring.

3. Payment fraud: the concepts a citizen needs

Counterfeit paper is the oldest financial crime in this track, but the Service's investigations page is plain that most of its financial work now concerns payments that never touch paper. Learn the concepts at the level the Service publishes them — the shape of each scheme, so you can recognize and refuse it; never its mechanics.

Access device fraud is the Service's published term for fraud involving payment cards and the devices and numbers that move electronic funds — including exploitation of public-assistance payment programs. Its familiar faces include card numbers stolen and used by strangers, and skimming, in which criminals capture card data at a payment point for later use. The citizen's defenses are unglamorous and effective: favor chip and contactless payments over swiping where offered, eyeball a card reader that looks loose or mismatched before using it, cover the keypad when entering a PIN, and treat a cluster of small unfamiliar charges as an alarm — criminals test stolen numbers small before spending large.

Social engineering and payment deception move the fraud from the machine to the relationship. In business email compromise and executive or vendor impersonation — described on the Service's investigations page as deceiving employees responsible for payments — a worker is manipulated into sending a payment to a criminal account. The fraud succeeds by urgency and secrecy: pay now, don't confirm. The published countermeasure is procedural: any change to payment instructions, and any urgent payment request, gets verified through a second, independently known channel — a call to a number you already have, never one supplied in the suspicious message. Households meet the same actor in different costume: the "bank fraud department" caller who needs you to move money to a "safe account," the grandchild in trouble, the romance or investment contact steering a victim into schemes including so-called "pig butchering" investment frauds. One rule defeats the whole family: no legitimate bank, agency, or officer will ever instruct you to move, withdraw, or hand over money to protect it, and any voice demanding secrecy plus speed is announcing itself.

Check and identity fraud complete the household picture. Stolen and altered checks, forged Treasury checks and securities, and theft of personally identifiable information for card and bank fraud all sit inside the Service's published investigative list. The corresponding habits are simple — shred financial mail, collect mail promptly, review statements, freeze credit after an exposure — and worth teaching to every elder in your family by name.

4. Cyber-enabled financial crime: the overview

The Service describes today's investigative focus as financial crimes increasingly conducted through cyberspace, and its Cyber Fraud Task Forces exist for exactly that reason. At the overview level this unit teaches, three patterns cover most of what reaches the public.

Network intrusion for financial gain. Criminal organizations break into business networks — through stolen credentials, phishing, and malware, in the Service's published summary — to steal sensitive information in bulk, then used or resold for fraud. Ransomware and extortion are the loud version: access is blocked or data is taken until a ransom, typically demanded in cryptocurrency, is paid. This school teaches no response tradecraft; it teaches the civic facts — this is a federal crime within the Service's and the FBI's published work, victims are urged to report promptly, and early reporting sometimes helps investigators and other potential victims.

Money laundering and money mules are how stolen value is disguised. The Service's public materials describe organizations that move criminal proceeds through networks of witting and unwitting "mules" — people recruited, often online, to receive and forward money or packages for a cut. Learn the recruitment shape, because students and job-seekers are its targets: a too-easy remote job moving funds through your own bank account is not employment; it is participation in laundering, and the account holder's name is the one on the transactions. Refuse it, and report the recruiter.

Cryptocurrency in financial crime appears across the Service's public descriptions — ransoms, laundering, investment schemes. The citizen-level teaching is sufficient: cryptocurrency transfers are typically irreversible, no agency recovers funds for an advance fee, and anyone who directs you to a crypto ATM to pay a debt, fine, ransom, or "verification" is running a fraud, full stop.

5. When it happens to you: the first day, done right

Financial-crime victims routinely lose twice — once to the criminal, and again to a panicked, disordered first day. Teach this sequence, in order. Stop the bleeding through your bank first. Call the number on your card or statement — not a number from the suspicious message — report the fraud, freeze or replace compromised cards and credentials, and dispute unauthorized transactions promptly; speed determines how much can be recovered. Change passwords from a clean device, starting with email, because email resets everything else, and turn on multi-factor authentication. Report to law enforcement. File with local police; report counterfeit currency to local police or a Secret Service field office as Section 2 taught; and report cyber-enabled crime through the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center at IC3.gov. A report that feels too small to matter is data in a pattern investigators genuinely use. Document everything: save messages, receipts, account numbers used by the criminal, and a dated timeline; give copies, never your only originals. Then watch. Place a fraud alert or credit freeze, read every statement for months, and expect follow-on attempts — the second call often claims to be the recovery.

Two comforts belong here. Being defrauded is not a character verdict — the Service's published categories are full of careful businesses and professionals deceived by industrial-scale operations — and shame is the fraudster's last tool, because it keeps victims from reporting. And the crisis lines in this unit's resources are not decoration: a student in despair over money lost has 988 beside the bank's number, on purpose.

Words to know — Presidential Protection Unit 3

• Know Your Money — the Secret Service's long-running public education effort teaching people to authenticate currency by its security features; today carried by the U.S. Currency Education Program at uscurrency.gov.
• Watermark — a faint image embedded in genuine currency paper, matching the portrait, visible from both sides when the note is held to light.
• Security thread — a thin strip embedded in genuine currency paper that names the denomination, sits in a published position, and glows a designated color under ultraviolet light.
• Color-shifting ink — ink on current notes, including the lower-right numeral, that changes color as the note is tilted; on the redesigned $100, joined by a woven blue 3-D security ribbon and a color-changing bell in an inkwell.
• Quick Glance — the Secret Service's public campaign teaching people to spot easy counterfeits — especially "For Motion Picture Use Only," "Replica," and foreign-writing prop notes — with a two-second look.
• Access device fraud — fraud involving payment cards or other devices and numbers that enable electronic funds transfers, including skimming; a core published Secret Service investigative category.
• Social engineering — deceiving a person into making a payment, revealing credentials, or granting access — for example, by impersonating an executive, vendor, bank, or family member; defeated by independent verification.
• Ransomware — malicious intrusion that blocks access to systems or threatens exposure of stolen data until a ransom is paid, typically in cryptocurrency.
• Money mule — a person, witting or unwitting, recruited to receive and forward criminal proceeds or goods, disguising the money's source; providing the account carries legal risk for the mule.
• Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) — the FBI-run federal intake at IC3.gov where victims report cyber-enabled crime; reports feed federal, state, and local investigators.

Myths vs facts — Presidential Protection Unit 3

• Myth: A counterfeit-detection pen settles whether a note is real. Fact: The U.S. Currency Education Program warns that detection pens are not always accurate; the reliable public method is the note's security features — feel the paper, tilt for color-shifting ink, and check the watermark and security thread against light.
• Myth: If someone passes you a fake bill, the fair thing is to spend it quickly and let it be someone else's problem. Fact: Knowingly passing a note you believe is counterfeit is a federal crime; the lawful course is to handle it as little as possible, note what you remember about the passer, and report it to local police or a Secret Service field office — and a counterfeit cannot be exchanged or reimbursed.
• Myth: An old or unfamiliar-looking bill must be fake, and a crisp new one must be real. Fact: All designs of U.S. currency remain legal tender regardless of when issued, and counterfeiters copy current designs; age and crispness prove nothing either way — features prove authenticity.
• Myth: Financial and cyber fraud only succeed against careless people, and reporting a small loss is pointless. Fact: The Service's published categories include frauds against banks, businesses, and payment systems run by organized criminal groups; and its task-force model is built on aggregated reports — a small, prompt report can be the data point that connects a pattern.

Think it through — Presidential Protection Unit 3

The situation: You help run the register at a neighborhood store on a busy Saturday. A customer pays for a small purchase with a $100 note. The paper feels smooth and flat. When you tilt it, the lower-right numeral does not change color. Held to the light, you see a faint watermark — but it appears to show a different face than the portrait printed on the note. A line is forming, the customer is watching you, and your coworker whispers, "Just take it, we're slammed."

Walk it through:

1. Read the note, not the pressure. Three public checks have failed in sequence — feel, tilt, and light — including the classic mismatch in which a low-denomination note was altered to look like a higher one, leaving its original watermark behind. Your coworker's suggestion would have the store absorb a $100 loss, and knowingly passing a note believed counterfeit onward is itself a crime.
2. Stay courteous and stay general. Do not accuse the customer — passers are frequently innocent recipients themselves. A calm, procedural sentence protects everyone: "Our store policy is that I can't accept this note; let me get my manager." Follow your employer's counterfeit procedure; if you have none, that is a finding to fix on Monday, using the uscurrency.gov guidance as the draft.
3. If the note comes into the store's possession as suspect, handle it as little as possible, keep it separate in an envelope, and write down immediately the time, a description of the passer and any companions or vehicle you genuinely saw, and what was purchased.
4. Report through the public routes: local police or the nearest Secret Service field office, following the current instructions at uscurrency.gov/report-counterfeit. Hand over your written notes with the note. Do not detain anyone or post about the person online — your evidence is the note and your notes, and your safety is worth more than either.
5. Close the loop. Log the incident, brief the next shift on the three failed checks, and put the feel-tilt-light card where register staff can see it. The decision skill is the unit in miniature: features over feelings, procedure over pressure, report over embarrassment.

Try this — Presidential Protection Unit 3

Run a household money-safety hour, with a notebook, using only public materials:

• The three-move drill. Take genuine notes of several denominations from your own wallet and practice feel, tilt, and check-with-light on each. Write down, per denomination, where its watermark and security thread sit, then verify your notes against the denomination pages at uscurrency.gov. Teach the drill to one other person; teaching is the test.
• The verification rule. Write your household's version of the business rule and post it where payments are made: "Any request to change where money goes, or to move money urgently and secretly, gets verified by a call to a number we already have — no exceptions." Read it aloud to the people it protects.
• The reporting card. Make one card with the first-day sequence from Section 5: your bank's number from your card, your local police non-emergency number, the nearest Secret Service field office (from the official field-office directory), IC3.gov, and uscurrency.gov/report-counterfeit. Put it with your financial documents, where a bad day will find it.

Resources to keep — Presidential Protection Unit 3

• 911 — for immediate danger, serious injury, or a medical emergency that cannot wait.
• 988 — call or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, for a person in emotional distress or for guidance on helping someone else.
• Crisis Text Line — text HOME to 741741 to connect with a live, trained crisis counselor by text.
• SAMHSA National Helpline — 1-800-662-4357 — free, confidential treatment referral for substance use and mental-health concerns.
• Poison Control — 1-800-222-1222 — for suspected poisoning or a harmful substance exposure; when in doubt about urgency, call 911 first.
• National Domestic Violence Hotline — 1-800-799-7233 — confidential help for domestic violence, by phone or online chat.
• RAINN — 1-800-656-4673 — the National Sexual Assault Hotline, confidential support and local referrals.
• Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline — 1-800-422-4453 — crisis counseling and reporting guidance about a child.
• U.S. Currency Education Program — https://www.uscurrency.gov/ — the government's public "Know Your Money" education: security features for every denomination and counterfeit guidance.
• Report a Counterfeit — https://www.uscurrency.gov/report-counterfeit — the current public instructions for reporting suspected counterfeit currency.
• Operation Quick Glance — https://www.uscurrency.gov/media/news/secret-service-quick-glance-campaign/ — the Service's campaign page on spotting prop and replica notes.
• Secret Service Investigations — https://www.secretservice.gov/investigations — the Service's published overview of the counterfeit, financial, and cyber crimes it investigates.
• Secret Service Field Offices — https://www.secretservice.gov/contact/field-offices — the official directory for reaching your nearest field office about counterfeit currency or financial crime.
• Internet Crime Complaint Center — https://www.ic3.gov/ — the federal intake for reporting cyber-enabled crime and online financial fraud.

Public sources — Presidential Protection Unit 3

• U.S. Currency Education Program (Federal Reserve Board, with Treasury, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and the Secret Service) — currency security features, authentication guidance, and counterfeit reporting — https://www.uscurrency.gov/ and https://www.uscurrency.gov/report-counterfeit
• U.S. Secret Service / U.S. Currency Education Program, Operation "Quick Glance" campaign — https://www.uscurrency.gov/media/news/secret-service-quick-glance-campaign/
• U.S. Secret Service, "Investigations" — published categories of counterfeit, financial, and cyber investigations, incl. access device fraud, social-engineering payment fraud, network intrusion, and ransomware — https://www.secretservice.gov/investigations
• U.S. Secret Service, Field Offices and Cyber Fraud Task Forces — https://www.secretservice.gov/contact/field-offices
• Federal Bureau of Investigation, Internet Crime Complaint Center — https://www.ic3.gov/

What you earned / what's next — Presidential Protection Unit 3

✅ Presidential Protection Unit 3 complete (quiz score 80% or higher): You can authenticate a banknote by feel, tilt, and light; refuse and report a suspect note lawfully and safely; name the shapes of payment fraud, social engineering, ransomware, and money-mule recruitment; and run a victim's first day in the right order — bank, credentials, law enforcement, documentation, watchfulness.

Your certificate

Minister Destiny Testimony Schools Minister Destiny Testimony Schools — Law Enforcement Certificate of Completion — Presidential Protection Unit 3: Financial Crimes Foundations: Counterfeit, Fraud, and Electronic Crimes

This certificate is presented by Muslim Ordained Minister Destiny Marie Morgan

Awarded to: ______________________________ (write your name here after you download — your name is never collected or stored by this school)

Date completed: ______________

Congratulations. The Service's first mission now lives in your own hands — in the two-second glance, the verified callback, and the report filed without shame. Honest money is protected by honest habits, practiced by ordinary people. Practice yours. — Minister Destiny Marie Morgan

This is a certificate of educational completion from Minister Destiny Testimony Schools, a community-designed training program. It is not a state license, a POST certification, or an agency qualification, and this program is not agency policy.

What's next: Presidential Protection Unit 4 — The Protectee's Rights and the Public's: Constitutional Balance in Protective Work

Minister Destiny Testimony Schools — Law Enforcement: Professional Training Wing. Community-designed educational training compiled from public sources; not agency policy, not a certification, and not legal advice.