Surely no one could possibly have expected this to work? They can't actually have been serious fraudsters can they? If this is the highest level of criminal ingenuity they can rise to, I think we can safely assume they are no threat to society.

Oh and Donde esta Señorita Hilton?

The forgeries weren't very good.

One of the denominations never existed.

The other was carefully accounted for, as you would expect of notes that valuable.

The only denomination that was ever issued has now expired and could only be exchanged by the Bank itself as a favour and, therefore, subjected to closer scrutiny than would normally be expected of a note

So, is this some strange use of the word "audacious" of which the rest of us have yet to be advised? My Thesaurus fails to list it as a synonym for "mind-numbingly incompetant". A terrible oversight.

No doubt at some point they'll be describing the ringleader as a "mastermind", a synonym for "fuckwit" as any fule kno.

I have a Malaysian Chinese mate who does business in pubs - works full time so has to have meetings outside hours.

I'm pretty sure that his wacky schemes have amounted to no more than a couple of pig iron shipments from Europe to Korea.

What were they thinking? It must be embarrassing being the prosecuting authorities.

Maybe I could sell them some monopoly money before the skip on bail...

I've tried, I really have, but I fail to see the mental processes behind this:

Person A: "Let's print some 500,000 pound notes and go into a bank and try to exchange them."

Person B: "Brilliant! How can it possibly fail...?"

It is clear they took Bottom's forgery scheme (which starts with the little-known, triangular and pornographic 27quid note) as an inspiration...

"I have a cunning plan . . ."

A quick search on Google News threw out quite a nice image of the £500,000 note. What is notable is that there are grammatical errors - spaces missing in the phony cashier instruction on the back - and it's very, very obviously been based on two different old notes. The Duke of Wellington on the back is pulled from an 80s-style fiver and the front appears to be based on a 60s note. They've used the number 5 from the real note and then slapped on five zeroes made in WordArt by the looks of things. Character spacing is abysmal throughout.

See for yourself:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/twindx/1706720663/

Honestly, it looks like a half-assed 419er piece of work!

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." - a case in point i feel

And yes, they do exist, but dont leave the premises (unlike in the film) according to the Bank of England:

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/about/other_notes.htm

...had lost the Civil War before Lizzy-two ascended the throne... why would they have large denomination banknotes with her image on them...?

Truly stupid criminals.

Seriously, for stupid crimes like this the guilty should be placed on public display in stocks for a few weeks, where the general public are allowed to mock and assault them with rotten fruit.

Thanks Steve for finding the piccies. That's one of the funniest things I've seen in a long, long time.

I vaguely remember a similar scheme from a "Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers" comic book, involving sticking extra zeros onto dollar bills and duplex colour photocopying. Of course, the Freaks' scheme worked; but that *was* just a story (and Gilbert Shelton actually knew a lot about real-life printing technologies).

Not to say that I haven't had a go at passing off the odd forgery myself, but at least I mostly stuck to bus tickets. Why bus tickets? Because that was my main mode of transport; and besides, the security measures were non-existent. After all, who would ever think of forging a bus ticket?! I just used to grab a roll-end from the litter bin when the driver refilled the machine; then print up return tickets (ostensibly issued earlier that day, at my intended destination) using a dot-matrix cunningly retrofitted with the right shade of purple ribbon and some home-written software.

...but then again i'm a bit stoopid!!!!

Seriously, it's gonna take them 6 weeks to find these muppets guilty?

How stupid are the courts???

Hello, english-type person. I wish to have change for this £500,000 note.

Yes sir, would you like 5 £100,000 notes or 2 £250,000 ones?

Of course it'll take 6 weeks - the legal system need to make their cut out of the situation; maybe we can pay these guys' legal fees using £500k notes...

...is the English lawyer who will be prosecuting the other 6 in the courts. Lets see, 6 weeks at £2k per hour plus expenses ....

This was a bad joke gone wrong. No need to make a fuss out of it.

they were caught because they put Paris Hilton's picture on the notes.

Ooh, sorry, we're right out of them. Will you take it in 9 bob notes?

Looking at those pictures, i suppose the note isnt tooo bad if it was for a school project, but trying it for real? WTF.

I think these people are so stupid they should be sentenced to be fired out of a cannon.

So: are you saying that this note I bought on eBay isn't real ?

I was hoping to double my money :-(

I would have paid 20 quid for a spoof 500 grand note to use in pubs for a laugh...

They could have had a nice little business going there - in major currencies...

what a bunch of losers!

"So: are you saying that this note I bought on eBay isn't real ?

I was hoping to double my money :-("

Hey, it's easy to double your money. Take a bill, of any denomination, and grasp the left-hand corner. Fold it over to cover the corresponding right-hand corner. Press flat.

Voila! You have "doubled" your money.*

Ed Drone

* This technique will not work with coinage, unless you're extremely strong.

umm no DONT let them off, they broke the law trying to defraud UK tax payers of thier money.

Send them to jail.

...handing out, as we do, billions in unearned VAT refunds (i.e. carousel fraud), in Tax Credits for gangsters, great amounts to 419 fraudsters, and no doubt all sorts of other undeserved monies to people who know they shouldn't be getting them.

They probably thought we wouldn't even be able to read, let alone count the banknotes...

'Long Juan' and one of the Freak brothers (Franklin) used the forgeries to bribe their way into - then out of the 'Mexican Hilton' - federal pen - to get the other two out..

viva Shelton :-)

Seriously? Really?! There's got to be more to it.

Trying to pass off counterfeit money at a bank is like sticking up a police station with a toy gun. I don't even know where to start with the amount... well, it's like sticking up a police station with a toy gun and demanding twenty-seven billion pounds actually. Nobody who's smart enough to actually do it is dumb enough to try it.

There's must be more to this than meets the eye. I'm thinking it's a government conspiracy to get out of paying the 27 billion pounds they just realized they actually owed someone. How convenient for them that the notes turned out to be such obvious forgeries.

"'Long Juan' and one of the Freak brothers (Franklin) used the forgeries to bribe their way into - then out of the 'Mexican Hilton' - federal pen - to get the other two out.."

At last, the Paris Hilton angle. Well done, that man!

The ad at the top of the page says 'Hilton analyzes 1.4 million records a day with SQL Server 2005'.

Well, she's got to have something to keep her busy hasn't she?

Hi all,

I wanted to highlight the possibility that these notes MAY have been genuine issues and the good old B of E is playing games.

I am a professional numismatist, with nearly 20-year’s experience- 12 of which in Asia.

I refer to Sterling Seagraves outstanding book- Gold Warriors: America's Secret Recovery of Yamashita's Gold.

Visit his site: http://www.bowstring.net/

In this book, Seagrave tells the tale of billions in gold looted by the Japanese during WWII. He also touches upon a scheme where Japanese bonds were declared illegal (fake) saving them billions possibly trillions.

Think about it: With communist china massing on the Hong Kong border, what motive would the B of E possibly have for issuing currency? And are the potential mistakes plausible deniability?

In addition, there is another case concerning American Ambassador LEO WANTA, commonly known as the TRILLION DOLLAR MAN who was imprisoned for his part in a Regan scheme to destroy the Russian rouble. Again a diplomat who was imprisoned; how did he loose his countries protection?

http://www.rense.com/general70/leo.htm

Personally I DO NOT agree with every detail- accept the FACT that our governments screw us every single day, and the possibility does exists that these notes were once issued – legally or illegally to Chinese Nationalist.

It is so outrageous, it could be true.