Culled from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Police arrest man in sophisticated counterfeiting scheme
By SAEED AHMED
When you haven't had a job in months, how do you deposit $10,000 in cash to your bank account every day?
If you're Conrad Maier-Sogheg, say police, you make the money. Literally.
Woodstock police announced Maier-Sogheg's arrest on Monday on charges of manufacturing thousands and thousands of fake dollar bills out of a storage unit, in a scheme so new and sophisticated that authorities have seen it attempted only once before in the United States.
It's called the Nigerian "black wash" scam, because it originated in the West African country and because the multi-step manufacturing process involves blackening the fake bills and then cleaning them.
"It's the best counterfeit scheme I have seen in my law enforcement career," said Sgt. Heath Johnston. "The bills look and feel real. Only an expert can tell they were fake."
Step one of the scam entails cutting up wads of plain white paper into dollar bill sizes.
Then, police said, Maier-Sogheg, 29, of Woodstock used laser templates bearing images of $100, $50 and $20 bills to imprint onto the pieces of paper.
Iodine or alcohol is then used to make the imprints appear visible on the paper, but the process also turns the papers black.
To turn it green, Maier-Sogheg allegedly used processed Vitamin C powder to "wash" them. In order to give the fake bills a gently-worn look, Maier-Sogheg then used baby powder or foot powder to soften them, Johnston said. Secret Service agents told Woodstock police that they uncovered a scam of this kind just once before: in New York last year.
"The scam is so new that the Secret Service has taken numerous bills up for processing" to gain insight into the operation, Johnston said. Maier-Sogheg ran his alleged operation from a self-storage unit on Ga. 92. Employees suspected something when they noticed him drive in and out of the facility at all hours of the day and night in his $80,000 Land Rover.
Once he failed to make the payment for his rental unit, employees went to empty out the storage spot and discovered numerous bottles of ink and iodine, along with baby powder and paper cut up to resemble dollar bills.
Police said they also seized chemical suits with masks to protect the wearer during the production process. They do not know how long Maier-Sogheg had been running his enterprise, but he had rented the storage unit for six months.
Authorities said Maier-Sogheg packaged the money into stacks of $10,000, and sold each stack for $1,000. The way the phony money was packaged led investigators to believe that most of it was being mailed overseas. However, police also think thousands may have seeped into local circulation.
Business, police said, was going well. "He was dropping $10,000 of real money on a daily basis" into his bank account, Johnston said. "I looked at his bank records. I saw $30,000 [deposited] in a four-day period."
During his interview with police, Maier-Sogheg implicated an accomplice. But that person has fled back to Cameroon after learning of the investigation, police said. Police seized Maier-Sogheg's Land Rover, two $2,000 diamond watches and are trying to seize his bank account and forfeit his $200,000 home, where he lives with his wife.
He has been charged with nine counts of forgery, all felonies, and with possession tools for the commission of a crime. He could face additional charges, and the case may be elevated to a federal level, authorities said.
Maier-Sogheg was released on a $150,000 bond. He paid with real cash. The Cherokee County jail checked.
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