All language subtitles for American Greed s05e10 The Royal Scam Kings of Counterfeit.eng

In this episode of American Greed,
Arthur Williams Jr., a Southside Chicago

street tough turned counterfeiting
craftsman, his bills impeccable.

The case agent testified at Art Jr.'s
sentencing that they were probably the

best quality he'd ever seen.

He rolls millions off the press, but
makes the mistake of turning it into a

family affair.

His dad asked him, so son, what are you
doing for a living?

Art says, well, Dad, I make money.

Okay, how do you make money?

I make money.

I'm a counterfeit.

On August 14, 2006,

A 15 -year -old boy approaches a Chicago
police car with a wad of cash in his

hand. He tells the officer that it's all
counterfeit and that there's a lot more

in his father's apartment upstairs.

So the police go in, they see what
appears to be obvious counterfeit and

of counterfeit bills being put together.

They also find the resident of the
apartment, Art Williams Jr., and arrest

on suspicion of counterfeiting.

They didn't have the machinery Art used
to make the bills.

But they had the bills themselves, and
Art could see that, you know, somebody

was going to have to pay for this, and
it was going to have to be him.

Williams talks to American Greed from
Federal Prison in Big Spring, Texas.

I guess that's where I failed my son,
right?

As far as being a good father, I didn't
know how to do that. I didn't have a

father in my own life.

What the police don't realize is that
most of the money is created by the 15

-year -old.

And that it will not be the last
counterfeit he will create.

We didn't have any reason to think he
was involved. We thought it was just,

know, unlucky kid with a criminal dad
who's got this kid in a bad situation.

Before being betrayed by his son,

Art Williams Jr.

claims to have produced more than $10
million in counterfeit cash, which some

federal agents call the best counterfeit
they've ever seen.

His journey has taken him from places as
desperate as the seedy underworld of

organized crime to the frozen expanses
of rural Alaska.

But his story starts here, on the south
side of Chicago, where he and his two

siblings spend their formative years in
the projects of a street -tough

neighborhood called Bridgeport.

It is the sad destination of a long
-deteriorating childhood, one that one

showed a great deal of promise.

Art was a brilliant little kid. He was a
straight -A student in school, which

was remarkable because he came from a
very messed -up family.

His father abandons the family when Art
Jr.

is nine, and his mother is diagnosed
with schizophrenia.

The mounting difficulties move the
family from a comfortable life in the

to the tough streets of the projects.

I remember walking through all the
projects.

There was graffiti and there were
gangbangers hanging out.

I mean, it was like, you know, walking
into hell.

Williams begins to adapt one afternoon
when he finds his mother in the kitchen

crying. She goes, I just don't know how
we're going to make it anymore.

And I went to the fridge and it was
empty, you know. And I just got so

not at my mom, but just angry at life.

He storms out of the house in
frustration.

I remember hitting the meters.

I mean, I'm walking by each one, and I'm
hitting them.

And so I start to hear the chains
rattling.

I started inspecting it, and I noticed
these two pins.

I remember picking up, and there was
this little piece of metal, and I stuck

under the pins, and what do you know,
this damn thing turned.

When Williams returns home with an
armful of groceries, he's greeted by a

conflicted reaction from his mother.

She was in tears.

that we had food.

But at the same time, she was mad
because I was stealing.

She always told me God would provide,
you know.

But I said, well, he did, you know. I
remember that was the first time that I

felt empowered.

At that point, you see this brilliant
little kid start to put on a completely

different sort of armor. He ends up
getting into street crimes because the

in the gang show him that, well, why are
you knocking over parking meters?

when you can be robbing the cars next to
them.

But lives in the streets almost always
have bad endings.

And to make matters more urgent,
Williams learns that his 14 -year -old

girlfriend is now pregnant with his
child.

Williams needs help. And one day,
opportunity is presented at a local

shop. One of the guys hanging out is
this old -school counterfeiter.

This guy says, you know, look, kid, I
can give you a job if you're interested.

In the mid -80s, before scanners and
Photoshop, counterfeiting is a legacy

crime. It's intricate details passed
from one generation to the next.

The old Italian counterfeiter takes
Williams to this nondescript building to

learn what is often called the world's
second oldest profession.

Counterfeiters have often described the
sensation of seeing the bills come off

the presses as almost sexual in nature.

For Art, this kid who had no money,
growing up in these hard circumstances,

suddenly printing their own money, he is
immediately addicted.

But after six months, William's new
teacher suddenly disappears.

It seems that William's counterfeiting
career is over before it starts.

I just reverted back to what I knew, and
that was the streets.

But life in the streets has gotten
tougher.

And after being shot in the leg,
Williams knows it's time for a change.

At that point, I just said, what am I
doing?

You know, what am I doing?

When American Greed returns, Williams'
newfound skills have him living the

highlights. But will he be able to stay
ahead of the law?

He needs to leave immediately because
these other people are going to get him

caught. He smells it.

On the south side of Chicago, Art
Williams Jr.

faces his destiny on the streets when a
rival gang puts two bullets in his legs.

He survives, but he knows his luck can't
last forever.

He realized that it's only a matter of
time if he sticks with the streets and

the street crime before he just gets
killed.

And so he decides that at that point
he's going to set up his own

operation. An old Italian counterfeiter
has shown Williams the basics of

counterfeiting. as a master shows his
apprentice.

But the master has disappeared, and
Williams is now on his own.

Luckily for him, a counterfeiter
couldn't be in a better place.

Within, I think, a couple hundred miles
radius of Chicago, you have the largest

printing industry in the world.

Not far from Williams' home, in fact, is
Chicago's Printer's Row, which has been

a hub of the U .S. printing industry for
over a century.

It provides everything he needs.

A printing press, process camera, plate
burner, hydraulic cutter, inks, and

miles of paper.

Unfortunately, despite having the
equipment, the young apprentice still

the skills.

Art's first bills, they come out like
purple.

They're no good.

He gets frustrated, he stops, and he
spends a couple weeks, you know, upset

depressed.

But Williams is resilient.

Right about that time, we're talking, I
think, the early 90s at this point, the

scanners and printers and computers and
the programs start becoming really,

really good. He creates what's called a
hybrid bill, where he uses both the

computer technology and the offset
technology.

Finally, he gets some pretty good bills.

Williams believes they're good enough to
get 30 cents on the dollar if he can

find the right buyers.

money off counterfeiting is to sell it
to other criminal groups. Because when

you're dealing with organized crime,
when you're printing it, no one's going

report you to the police.

And again, he couldn't be in a better
place than Chicago.

It's one of the great capitals of
organized crime.

Growing up in Bridgeport, you know,
there's guys right up the street.

Before long, Williams is selling to
crime organizations, including the

Mexican, and Russian mafias.

Williams estimates that he sells $3
million of counterfeit over the next

years, earning him a profit of
approximately a million dollars.

And he knows how to spend it.

When you know you can always print more
money, you tend to not care.

He becomes the life of a nonstop party.

But the high life is causing problems
with his girlfriend, who takes care of

their son, Arthur Williams III.

He spends more and more time away from
home. He starts dabbling in cocaine, and

that's no good for his home life.

And so eventually she starts seeing
someone else.

Williams is devastated, but suddenly
gets a phone call from a voice that has

rarely been able to offer support in the
past, his mother's.

By then she's living in Texas, where
she's originally from, and she talks him

into moving down to Texas and getting
out of Chicago.

Williams shuts down his counterfeiting
shop and gets on a bus to rural Texas to

start a new life.

And a new life it is.

Well, life in Texas is a lot slower than
it is in the streets of Chicago.

And Art actually kind of goes straight
for a while.

But it doesn't last.

Art sort of, you know, has this little
criminal alarm clock in him. And the

alarm's just gone off.

Williams returns to street crimes that
he knows from his days on the south side

of Chicago.

He even does a three -year stint at a
Texas prison for burglary.

But the crimes don't stay petty for
long.

One day, his new girlfriend, Natalie,
peaks his singular obsession when she

pulls out a $100 bill at a bookstore.

That's the first time Art sees the new
money that had changed in 1996.

When American Greed Returns.

The U .S. government sets its sights on
counterfeiters with its most complex

bill yet.

Will Williams be able to beat it?

It goes from the way to make money for
art to an almost artistic quest.

It's about being able to create
something that nobody else can.

It's rolling off the presses now, the
biggest change in the look of U .S.

currency in 66 years.

In 1996, the U .S. Treasury Department
begins issuing a new series of bills in

the most concentrated effort in U .S.
history to deter counterfeiters.

The first to get a facelift is the $100
bill, the most widely circulated piece

of currency in the world and the most
tempting target for counterfeiters.

Three years later, retired counterfeiter
Arthur Williams Jr.

holds the new $100 bill in his hands for
the first time.

It's like nothing he's ever seen.

The new bill comes with a myriad of
security features. The watermark, the

security thread, color -shifting ink,
micro -printing.

When Art sees the bill, he's enraptured
by it.

He's looking at the watermark and, you
know, he's thinking, wow, and he sees

color -shifting ink.

And suddenly, all these old techniques,
they start going through his head about

how to defeat each measure.

In addition to being the most secure
bill in U .S. history, it is also the

publicized, thanks to the government's
Know Your Money campaign.

The important thing about the publicity
campaign was that people became aware of

the money that they were actually
spending in their hand. The watermark on

real hundred is large and fuzzy.

On a fake...

The image is smaller and sharper.

People suddenly knew about the
watermark. They knew about the security

People are paying attention to their
money. And if you're a counterfeiter,

that's not something you want people to
do.

Unless you are an extraordinary
counterfeiter.

By making the bill so difficult to
replicate, the U .S. Treasury has just

eliminated a great deal of Williams'
competition.

He knew that whoever could counterfeit
this new $100 bill convincingly stood to

make a great deal of money.

The potential payoff is too much to
resist.

He sets up shop in his girlfriend
Natalie's apartment and begins to unlock

1996 new note.

Once Art starts getting into reverse
engineering this bill, he really falls

love with the process.

It goes from a way to make money for Art
to an almost artistic quest.

It's about being able to create
something that nobody else can.

In other words, Williams is an artist,
and the 1996 $100 note is to be his

Mona Lisa.

The first thing he goes after isn't even
really part of the bill. It's the pen,

because this anti -counterfeiting pen
was everywhere at that point.

It's the pen we've seen cashiers mark
bills with all across the country.

On real U .S. currency, the pen will
mark yellow, but most fake currency will

mark black.

It all comes down to the paper.

Williams assigns Natalie the task of
finding the right paper to trick the

But she's having trouble, and Williams
is getting frustrated.

Finally, one day, she blows up at him,
and she says, Look, I've tried

everything. You want me to try this? And
she goes around the house, and you want

me to try that? Marking everything in
paper with the counterfeiting pen.

And then she marks a phone book, and
they both look at it, and the ink stays

yellow. Having found the right paper,
Williams sets out to tackle the next

challenge, the color -shifting ink.

If you look at the bill, it's on the
denomination mark on the lower right

corner. As the angle of the bill
changes, the color of the ink changes

black to green.

Hart has never dealt with an ink like
that. He's just using basic inks, and he

doesn't know where this stuff has come
from.

And then one day he's walking across a
parking lot, and he sees a car.

And he notices the color of the car is
changing as he walks past it.

And he says whatever they're using in
that car could work for this.

He begins calling auto body shops and
discovers something remarkable.

The same company that provides the U .S.
Treasury with one of their most prized

security features sells the same
technology publicly.

Can't get the exact same color, but you
can get a shift.

And as far as he's concerned, the shift
is all that matters. They're just

looking for the shift. They're not
necessarily looking at the color of the

shift. It's an important distinction.

With counterfeiting, you're not creating
real money.

You're creating an expectation of what
real money is.

And as far as the public is concerned,
if you meet all those expectations, it

real money to them.

That distinction is maybe clearest in
how Williams recreates the micro

-printing. He cannot replicate the
detail of real currency, but to the

eye, it appears that the micro -printing
is there, which is enough for your

typical cashier.

Only under magnification can you see the
lower resolution of the fake.

But these issues are almost trivial
compared with the final hurdle, the

watermark. The watermark can be visible
to the right of the portrait.

And if you hold it up to a light, you're
seeing a ghostly, sort of shadowy image

of Benjamin Franklin.

The challenge of the watermark is that
it's actually built into the paper.

So unless Williams makes his own paper,
it is impossible to genuinely replicate.

The answer eventually comes to him in a
dream he has. He sees two pieces of

paper with a fake watermark in the
middle of them, and they come together

sandwich.

Williams cuts out a portrait of Benjamin
Franklin from ultra -thin tracing paper

and puts it between the front and back
of the bill.

And the interesting thing about that is
he can also put in a security strip if

he's doing it that way.

And where one piece of phone book paper
is too thin, two pieces is absolutely

perfect. Art in Natalie's Mona Lisa is
complete.

You can hear just the ominous respect in
their voice about what it was like

to see that bill and know that it would
pass all those tests.

It was a powerful thing that they had
come up with.

In the fall of 1999, they head back to
Chicago to look up some old clients from

the shadowy world of organized crime.

As soon as his old cohorts see that
bill, the bank is open. It's time to do

real business with this money.

But by now, selling the money is not the
only way these alchemists can turn

counterfeit cash into gold.

Once Art came up with the 96 note, It
was just too enticing for him to just

it to people. He started spending it.
But the way he would spend it was pretty

fun. He calls it slamming. He would get
a bunch of trusted friends and family

members, and he would take them on a
road trip.

And they would hit the big super malls
across the Midwest.

And they would go into a store, they'd
buy something worth like $10, and they'd

get $90 back in real change.

Art's sister Wednesday is a part of it
from the beginning.

You go in, you pick something out, you
go up to the cash register and you talk

and you smile and you hand her the bill.

She can mark it, it would mark.

She can look and see the strip and put
it in and give you your change.

But it isn't just take the money and
run.

Yes, they keep the money.

But they served their penance by
dropping off the ill -gotten merchandise

nearest Salvation Army.

Diapers, clothes, baby clothes, shoes,
stuff like that.

We're giving people, I mean, we're not
really like bad criminals.

This became a high in and of itself to
Art, because Art suddenly gets to be

Robin Hood.

Suddenly he is fighting the big money
system, because he would only really hit

the big chain stores.

I don't know if I should feel guilty for
that.

Guilty for...

Taking money from a big department
store?

I don't know. Maybe, I mean, yeah, maybe
I was in the wrong. Maybe we were in

the wrong.

But I don't really feel guilty if I
should.

I don't know if that's bad.

Is that bad?

Over the next two years, Williams
estimates that he prints $4 to $5

counterfeit currency.

And it appears law enforcement is
nowhere near catching him.

Until he offers them a reason to come to
his door at the House of Blues Hotel in

Chicago.

A security guard at the hotel heard Art
and one of his friends talking about

getting some cocaine to party with that
night.

And at that point, he tells a couple of
Chicago police officers who are outside.

The police don't have a right to search
a room based on hearsay. So the security

guard fabricates a noise complaint that
allows them to knock on Williams' door.

They just kind of barge their way in.

and sitting on a coffee table in there
is some marijuana.

It prompts a more intensive search, and
one of the officers finds a stack of

bills. And he looks really closely at
it, and the one thing he doesn't see on

those bills are the little red and blue
silk hairs.

The red and blue silk fibers have been
in U .S. currency for decades, and

Williams usually replicates them easily.
This time he was either lazy or he

simply forgot.

A few hours later, Secret Service shows
up, and they had known about him.

They didn't know who he was or where he
was, but they knew about his bills, and

they had been looking for him.

The Secret Service not only protects the
president, it also protects the United

States' financial integrity.

And now they have one of its most
prolific corruptors sitting right in

them.

When American Greed Returns.

Is Williams about to face his reckoning?

I mean, when you got two cops coming
into the room with guns pointed at your

face, you know, it doesn't look good,
right?

On February 20th, 2001, master
counterfeiter Arthur Williams Jr.

sits in a Chicago interrogation room
with the United States Secret Service.

He's been caught with approximately $60
,000 in counterfeit at the House of

Blues Hotel.

And the Secret Service wants to know
where it came from.

He confessed. He was almost looking for
approval from the only people who really

could appreciate what he did, which were
the Secret Service.

While Williams thinks he's caught, his
lawyer isn't so sure.

He goes to the hotel room to review the
arrest and find something interesting.

The police officer would later claim
that when she had opened the door a

he could see pot on the table.

And that turned out to be impossible
because the table was positioned out of

view of the door.

It's an illegal search.

And in the eyes of the law, it's like
the $60 ,000 of fake cash never existed.

Williams walks out a free man.

But at the same time, it's kind of over
for him, he thinks, because they know

who he is. If he starts printing this
bill again, they'll be right back on

Once again, it appears Williams' career
as a counterfeiter is over.

I felt more imprisoned than I ever did
in my whole life as I walked out that

door. It just felt like so many eyes
were on me, and I couldn't hide nowhere.

And it was miserable.

Within a few days, he's back in Texas
with Natalie, where he spends most of

days in a funk, lying around and
watching TV.

Until one day, he finds a new sense of
purpose, provided by none other than

Sylvester Stallone.

He sees this movie Over the Top with
Sylvester Stallone, playing this trucker

who hasn't seen his son in many years.

And Art becomes very nostalgic.

And he decides he wants to know what the
hell happened to his father who had

left all those years ago.

William's relationship with his father
is complicated, to say the least.

This is my mom and my brother and me and
Jason.

This is when my dad was in jail.

It appears Art Jr.

has inherited his criminal genes from
his father. When the kids are very

Arthur Sr.

serves two years in jail for auto theft.

and the problems at home immediately
intensify upon his release.

When my dad got out of prison, it was
just terrible.

They were fighting all the time, and my
dad started drinking, and he started

getting violent.

The family soon disintegrates.

Art Sr.

moves out, and within a couple of years,
he kidnaps the three children to start

a family with a new woman and her two
children.

I didn't say, this is your new mother.

Call her mother.

We didn't know what was going on. We
were really young. You know, I was five.

Art was six. Jason was still a baby.

He takes the new family on the road, but
it's hardly a family vacation.

Art Senior is simply an old -time scam
artist.

They roll across the country writing bad
checks and moving on to the next town

before the checks hit the banks.

The irony of the lifestyle is not lost
on Williams.

He was hanging paper, and then I grew
up, and I started hanging paper, just a

different paper, but it was still paper,
you know?

It's a nightmarish existence.

But even amongst that, you still love
your dad, right? It's amazing, because

you're feeling this pain, and all you
want to do is please, still.

Then, after two years on the road,
moving from town to town and motel to

Art Sr.

suddenly returns the children to their
mother in Chicago.

And he left, and that was it.

I've never seen him again.

More than 15 years later, as he watches
a Sylvester Stallone movie from a couch

in Denton, Texas, that longing to
connect with his father is still there.

Natalie subscribes to an Internet people
finder service and in 20 minutes has an

address. It's a post office box in a
remote town called Chickaloon, Alaska.

Williams writes a letter.

And within a month, this street kid from
the south side of Chicago is on his way

to one of the most remote places in
America.

The first night there, Arthur Jr.

and Arthur Sr.

settled in for the conversation they
both know is coming.

He's hoping for an answer is the first
thing he wants. He wants to know why his

dad left all those years ago.

The excuses he got from his father were,
you know, pretty lame.

Oh, your mother made it hard for me.

Oh, I tried finding you over the years.

Art didn't believe any of it.

And he kind of just swallowed that
because he wanted to see where this was

to go.

And we were bonding, and I just felt
like, you know, I wanted to stay there.

didn't want to go back to Chicago. I
didn't want to go back to Texas.

And, you know, when I seen what he was
doing, he was growing weed.

And, you know, he was still doing things
that were contrary to the law.

And that's when I figured, hey, I'll
show him what I've been doing, you know.

His dad eventually asked him, so, son,
what are you doing for a living? What do

you do with your life?

And Art finally says, well, Dad, I make
money.

Okay, how do you make money?

I make money.

I'm a counterfeiter.

Art Jr.

and his family were not alone on their
trip to Alaska.

They brought $50 ,000 in counterfeit
bills from an old stash.

Whenever Art would show someone the $100
bill that he had perfected, they would

just get this glow about them, and you
could see the dollar signs in their eye.

The money itself was so good that it
would corrupt people.

And Art makes the mistake of showing his
father one of his bills, and of course

his father sees it and he gets the glow.

It's exactly the reaction Art is hoping
for.

He wanted his father to be proud of him.

And that's exactly what he felt.

But his dad was looking into his own
interests at that point.

It's not long before Arthur Sr.

asks his son if he can make more.

He knows that it's a very dangerous
thing to get involved in a criminal

enterprise with his father.

But his father keeps pushing him and
pushing him. In reality, Williams wants

do it.

It was an addiction.

But Alaska is no place to get the
equipment needed for a proper

operation.

There's only one place that will do. The
center of the U .S. printing industry,

Chicago, Illinois.

When American Greed returns, a distorted
American rite of passage, the family

road trip.

Will it save a broken family or tear it
apart completely?

I realized that this was wrong.

It wasn't what I was looking for.

In the summer of 2001, the newly minted
counterfeiting team of Arthur Williams

Jr. and Arthur Williams Sr.

is driving to Chicago to get supplies
for their operation back in Alaska.

They'll need money to pay for the
equipment once they get there.

Fortunately, over the years, Art Jr.

has developed the perfect system for
raising cash.

He calls it slamming.

Buying inexpensive goods with
counterfeit $100 bills and getting real

changed.

When Art Jr.

introduces the concept to his father, it
seemed right up the old criminal's

alley.

His dad comes up with this thing about
hitting gas stations.

Because his dad, being the old grifter
that he is, he used to hit gas stations

himself. And they're hitting every gas
station between Seattle and Chicago.

And they're having quite a good time.

Once they get to Chicago, Art Jr.

buys all the supplies they need for
their counterfeiting lair and ships them

back to Alaska.

But before they head back themselves,
they decide to pick up one more

I was shocked to see my dad. I was
actually happy. I don't know why. I was

different place in my life.

The next day, all three are taking a
family road trip, slamming counterfeit

money all along the way.

Everything is going well.

until feelings of abandonment and abuse
well to the surface when Wednesday buys

her father a card on Father's Day.

I gave it to him when we were sitting in
the truck stop.

And then all of a sudden I just got mad
and said, you don't deserve it, and got

up and walked out.

That's the way I felt. Why am I giving
you a card?

Everything that this card represents
does not represent you.

Art Jr.

is starting to feel it too.

It just didn't feel right.

At first it seemed cool, you know, like,
hey, this is it, man, me and my sister

and my dad on the road, we're having
fun.

But then Wednesday she broke down real
hard, and I realized that this was

There's that little boy, that little 11
-year -old kid in art that still wanted

to be a legitimate citizen and not a
criminal, and he sort of expects his

to want to reinforce that.

There's a part of him that wants his dad
to say, no, son, you have to stop.

But he doesn't see any of that in his
father. His father wants to do this.

His father wants to do it so badly, in
fact, that when they return to Alaska,

tells his wife and niece all about it.
And then tells two more friends, Jim and

Vicki Shanigan.

When our junior hears his father has
spilled the secret, he's enraged.

Confirms all the bad feelings he has
about the entire enterprise.

That makes the decision simple for him.
He needs to leave Alaska immediately.

because these other people are going to
get him caught. He smells it.

He tells his father he's leaving, but he
has less time than he thinks.

Art Sr.

and Denise have already given the
Shanigans counterfeit money to start

It's a huge mistake.

They were going back to the same places,
the same stores where they had passed

counterfeit money before, and going and
passing it again.

These people are all making all the
biggest amateur mistakes you could make.

The end is only a matter of time.

The Anchorage Police Department
apprehended a couple of individuals, Jim

Shanigan and Vicki Shanigan, at the
Fifth Avenue Mall here in Anchorage.

They're taken into questioning by the
Secret Service.

They tell the government everything they
need to get a search warrant for Art

Senior's house.

The agents found not only all the
accoutrements of the counterfeiting

computer, a scanner, a printer, paper.

discarded remains of counterfeit
currency. They also found a number of

in the residence.

As a convicted felon, Art Sr.

is not allowed to have firearms in his
possession.

He's immediately arrested.

In the meantime, authorities move to
search the apartment where Art Jr.

and Natalie have been staying in
Anchorage.

But by the time they get there, Art and
Natalie are gone.

As it turns out, the day before the
search warrant was executed,

Natalie was passing counterfeit currency
over at the Fifth Avenue Mall here in

Anchorage, the place where the Shanigans
had been discovered four days earlier.

When she passes a counterfeit note at a
camera store, an alert cashier

immediately recognizes it.

What he decided to do was to call
another store employee over, hand that

employee a digital camera.

and ask him to take a picture of him
with Natalie Williams.

Under the auspices of telling her to
take a look at how good this camera is,

something like that.

Natalie flees the mall.

I suspect she had a pretty good idea of
why this guy was asking the

other employee to take a picture of her.

She and Art Jr.

left Alaska that night.

They fly back to Texas.

But unfortunately for Williams, federal
authorities are pressuring Art Sr.

to tell them where he is.

In, you know, probably the saddest event
in his life, Art's father eventually

turns him in. So the Secret Service is
waiting there in Texas when Art shows up

at Natalie's mother's.

As it turns out, however, the government
has relatively little hard evidence on

Art Jr.

himself. until his ego again gets the
better of him.

Ironically, when Art Jr.

was arrested in the Dallas -Fort Worth
area, he admitted he had manufactured

counterfeit currency. Warren, in fact,
was quite boastful.

On February 25, 2002, Art Jr.

is sentenced to 36 months in prison
after pleading guilty to one count of

manufacturing counterfeit currency.

Art Sr.

also pleads guilty to manufacturing
counterfeit currency.

But with his gun charge and parole
violation, is sentenced to almost six

The two will never see each other again.

When American Greed returns, Art
Williams Jr.

is reunited with his son in Chicago.

His last father -son reunion ended in
disaster.

Will this one be any different?

You know, where I thought that I was...

the one sacrificing, I was actually
sacrificing him.

February 25th, 2004.

It's a date that is etched in Art
Williams Jr.'s memory.

After serving a 36 -month sentence for
manufacturing counterfeit currency, he

finally released to his hometown of
Chicago.

But that is not what Williams remembers
most from this day.

He gets a phone call from his stepsister
in Alaska informing him that the

night before his father had died of a
heart attack in his prison cell.

It left him with a tremendous feeling of
guilt that he...

introduced all this to his father's
life, and now his father died in prison.

So the one thing that he wanted, which
was to reconnect with his father, was

impossible.

Nevertheless, Williams must move on with
his life.

He finds new joy and new pressures in
reconnecting with his son, Arthur

III.

Little art, and the kid could use a
father.

He was a teenager.

You know what teenagers are like.
They're experimenting with things,

smoking pot.

His son is still there in Bridgeport,
and the streets are still tough.

He had had it a little better than Art
did.

But Art still wanted to get him out of
there.

It appears he may even have a chance.

His son turns out to be a very talented
young rap artist.

I had a friend that had a studio.

I asked my friend, hey, can I bring my
kid down?

They took him for the day, and they
said, hey, man, this kid's good.

He's got some serious potential.

I was like, well, what do I got to do?
And so they started telling me, and it

was just racking up. I mean, it was a
lot of money. I had no clue of what the

people go through to make music.

And Williams soon finds that making
money legitimately is not as easy as it

sounds.

When I first was released, I really had
every intention on doing the right

thing. I mean, I guess all criminals say
that.

But I really wanted to try to make a
difference in my life. And it just

like everything I tried failed.

Then, in July of 2005, Jason Kirsten
publishes an article on Williams in

Stone magazine as a precursor to his
book.

Unfortunately, the notoriety only
increases the demand for William's

his temptation to produce it.

Shortly after the magazine article came
out, he became harder to get a hold of.

And any time you're dealing with a
criminal, that's a bad sign.

I started doing what I had to do to give
my kid his dream.

And I just naturally kind of drifted
back to what I knew best.

William starts financing his son's
career.

But his own career has unintended
influences on the young rap prodigy.

long before Little Art begins
counterfeiting behind his father's back.

And on a certain level, I kind of blame
myself for that.

You know, here's his son, and he's like
an aspiring musician.

And here's an article about his dad in
Rolling Stone magazine about being a

successful, clever counterfeiter.

And I can't even imagine what this 15
-year -old kid must have thought.

In retrospect, it should have been clear
from Little Art's song, Mr.

Counterfeit.

Art Jr.

misses it, too, until the truth is laid
out right in front of him.

Art comes home one day and he finds
these bills that his son had been

And they get in a huge fight.

over it.

The kid grabs a pile of this money he
had been making along with a couple of

bills that he had stolen from his dad
and runs out into the street and flags

down a Chicago PD cruiser.

Even though Art Jr. now claims some of
the bills found in the apartment are his

son's, he takes the rap for all of it.

I don't know if he just figured the gig
was up at that point or what, but the

plea process was pretty simple.

Williams pleads guilty to one count of
making counterfeit currency and is

eventually linked to more than $200 ,000
in counterfeit bills found in the area,

significantly less than the nearly $10
million Williams now claims to have

produced. His bills even win the acclaim
of the Secret Service.

The case agent testified at Art Jr.'s
sentencing that they were probably the

best quality he'd ever seen.

But Williams no longer seems so proud.

I was kind of surprised when after the
fact I read like the Rolling Stone

article to see what sort of bravado he
had back then because he always seemed

very beaten down when he was in court.

He is sentenced to 87 months in prison.

Sadly, this is not where the story ends.

A year and a half later, the Secret
Service finds an informant who claims to

able to buy counterfeit bills from a
local manufacturer.

They figure out that the guy he's
talking about is Arthur Williams III.

The Secret Service sets up a sting, and
on June 29, 2009, Arthur Williams III is

arrested for counterfeiting. He pleads
guilty, but before sentencing, writes a

letter to the judge.

In it, he claims responsibility for his
actions, but says that they arose from a

childhood lacking in guidance.

I read his letter.

You know, it hurt me because I, you
know, I had always thought I was a

good father. I just wanted to give him a
dream, you know.

Am I supposed to be mad at my kid?

Well, I can't because that's what he
sees, right? I mean, you know, where I

thought that I was the one sacrificing,
I was actually sacrificing him.

On November 10, 2010, 20 -year -old
Arthur Williams III is sentenced to 63

months in prison.

In the spring of 2011, the U .S.
Treasury is scheduled to release its

$100 note.

As always, it is created with the intent
of being the most difficult bill to

counterfeit ever made.

The more complex we can make a note, the
higher the hurdle is for those

counterfeiters to try to duplicate. And
we're very proud of this note because

it's going to be very difficult.

Arthur Williams Jr.

is scheduled to be released in January
2015.

And just like in 1996, whoever can
duplicate the new bill stands to make a

deal of money.

Will Williams resist his siren's call?

Counterfeiters have a higher recidivism
rate than heroin addicts.

The temptation is going to be there that
he's going to have to look at it and

he's going to wonder about it.

I want to see him come out of prison and
take the straight and narrow road. Now

that's going to be completely up to him.

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