Arthur J. Williams Jr.

Arthur "Artorius" Williams Jr is an American-born counterfeiter and subject of the book The Art of Making Money by Jason Kersten. He is most known for having counterfeited the 1996-issued $100 Bill, the quality of which is on par with the supernote.[1] He currently resides in Chicago. His story was featured on NPR's The Diane Rehm Show on June 15, 2009. He was also featured in Season 5 Episode 10 of American Greed.

Personal life

Williams was born on Thanksgiving, 1972. Raised on the south side of Chicago in the projects on 31st and Halsted, Williams grew up to be a diehard Chicago White Sox fan. At the age of 15, he was taught how to counterfeit by another criminal who went by the name "Da Vinci". Afterwards, Williams was soon recruited by Chicago's street underworld. As a teenager, he met a young woman from the Southside of Chicago. They had one child, Art Williams III, after his father. Due to violence and gangs and him being shot in the hip he moved to Gainesville, Texas where he took care of his bipolar mother.

In 1996, the U.S. Treasury had made a focused effort to stop counterfeiting by releasing new bills. The first to be released was the $100 note. While on a shopping trip with his new wife, Natalie, Williams held the new note in his hand and became obsessed. The complex note reignited his passion for counterfeiting. He studied the new features closely, focusing in on the watermark, security thread, color-shifting ink and micro-printed details. He immediately began working on ways to defeat these new security hurdles.[2]

In February 2001, Williams was caught with 60k in fake currency at the house of blues with his wife's sister. Whilst this should have caused him jail time he was released due to an illegal search and seizure. He was arrested in 2002 for producing counterfeit money. This resulted in a 3 year prison sentence.[3]

Williams was arrested in August 2006 after authorities searched his apartment and found counterfeit bills and tools to make counterfeit bills.[4]

Before Williams was released from jail in January 2014, he began building his company, Julius Davinci Clothing.

References
  1. "Son of 'master counterfeiter' arrested". NBC News. NBC News. Retrieved 17 March 2022.
  2. James, Randy (15 Jun 2009). "The Art of Counterfeiting Money". Time Magazine. Archived from the original on 18 June 2009. Retrieved 17 March 2022.
  3. Coen, Jeff. "Vow to reform was as bogus as his money". Chicago Tribune. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 17 March 2022.
  4. Coen, Jeff. "Counterfeiter who told story arrested again". Chicago Tribune. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 17 March 2022.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.