"Made After Watching YouTube"... Man in His 30s Sentenced to Prison for Using Counterfeit Bills at Convenience Store

Unemployed and Facing Financial Hardship, He Made Counterfeit Bills with a Color Printer
Crude Quality Made the Fakes Easily Detectable by Sight

A man in his 30s who used a color printer to make counterfeit money based on a YouTube video has been sentenced to prison.

According to the legal community on May 3, the Criminal Division 1 of Namyangju Branch, Uijeongbu District Court (Presiding Judge Kim Guksik) recently sentenced Mr. A (34), who was indicted on charges of currency counterfeiting, use of counterfeit currency, and attempted use of counterfeit currency, to one year and six months in prison.

Mr. A was brought to trial on charges of using a counterfeit 50,000 won bill he made himself to buy cigarettes worth 4,500 won at a convenience store in Guri, Gyeonggi Province, at around 7:40 a.m. on September 6 of last year. Later that same day, at around 9:30 a.m., he attempted to purchase cigarettes at another convenience store in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, using the same method. However, when the clerk became suspicious of the bill being counterfeit, Mr. A retrieved it and paid with real money, resulting in an additional charge of attempted use of counterfeit currency.

Counterfeit 50,000 won banknote. Photo is not directly related to the content of this article. Photo by Yonhap News Agency

An investigation revealed that Mr. A, who had been living without a steady income and experiencing financial difficulties, planned the crime after watching videos related to counterfeiting money on YouTube. He then purchased a color printer and produced six counterfeit 50,000 won bills.

The counterfeit bills were made by double-sided printing on regular paper and cutting them with a utility knife, making them so crude that their fake nature could be easily detected with the naked eye.

The court stated, "Currency counterfeiting is a serious crime that undermines public trust and the safety of transactions," and added, "The defendant committed the crime while on probation for a different offense, which reflects poorly on the nature of the crime."

However, the court explained the sentencing by noting, "The means and methods of the crime were not sophisticated, the duration of the offense was not long, and the defendant had no previous record of similar offenses."

Meanwhile, according to the "Status of Counterfeit Currency Detected in 2025" announced by the Bank of Korea in January, the number of counterfeit bills discovered last year was 98, falling below 100 for the first time. This figure represents a decrease of 33.3% compared to the previous year (147 bills). The annual trend in counterfeit bill detection had remained above 1,000 until 2017, but has steadily declined since then. By denomination, the breakdown was 35 bills of 5,000 won, 28 bills of 10,000 won, 24 bills of 50,000 won, and 11 bills of 1,000 won.

The number of counterfeit bills detected per 10 million banknotes in circulation in Korea is 1.4, which is significantly lower than 1,977 in the UK, 1,866 in the Eurozone, 757 in Canada, and 16.5 in Japan.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.