1129: Russ Swain | The Good Mormon Who Made Bad Money

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Jordan Harbinger Show - Episode 1129: Russ Swain | The Good Mormon Who Made Bad Money

Release Date: March 18, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode 1129 of The Jordan Harbinger Show, host Jordan Harbinger engages in a captivating conversation with Russ Swain—a man whose life journey intertwines faith, creativity, and criminal ingenuity. Russ Swain, a devout Mormon, navigates the fine line between his moral compass and the seductive allure of illicit activities, particularly counterfeiting. This episode delves deep into Russ's transformational story, exploring his motivations, methods, and the profound impacts of his actions on his personal and professional life.

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Early Life and Teenage Forgeries

Russ Swain's proclivity for forgery began in his youth, driven by a blend of creativity and rebellion against the rigid structures of his upbringing.

• Forging Excuse Notes (1967-1968):

  • [26:03] Russ recounts how his mother's emphasis on impeccable penmanship led him to craft convincing excuse notes for friends wanting to skip school for skiing.
  • Notable Quote:
    • Russ Swain: "I thought, this is easy. Please excuse my son Ralph's absence from school. It worked so well." [26:15]

• Transition to Report Card Forgeries:

  • As skipping school became habitual, Russ escalated his forgeries to include fake report cards to prevent grounding.
  • [28:03] He charged a modest fee, turning his forgery skills into a profitable side business—albeit short-lived due to a student’s betrayal.

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The Art of Counterfeiting: From Postage Stamps to Cash

Russ's journey from a teenage forger to a professional counterfeiter showcases his relentless pursuit of problem-solving through unconventional means.

• Creating a Hand-Painted Postage Stamp (1984):

  • [03:23] After graduating from art school, Russ sought to stand out to secure a job at an advertising agency. He ingeniously hand-painted a postage stamp, believing it would demonstrate his "thinking outside the box."
  • Notable Quote:
    • Russ Swain: "I used a very fine sable brush... It took several hours, but I pulled it off. And it made my resume stand out." [05:30]

• Establishing a Graphic Design Studio:

  • Russ's studio quickly attracted significant clients, leading him to invest heavily in equipment funded by a high-interest loan from a loan shark named Tommy.
  • Loan Details:
    • [08:06] Russ borrowed $10,000 at an exorbitant 10% monthly interest rate, equivalent to 120% annually.

• Desperate Measures to Repay the Loan:

  • [07:18] Faced with mounting debt and business setbacks, Russ conceived the bold idea to counterfeit U.S. currency, leveraging his expertise in paper and ink.
  • Notable Quote:
    • Russ Swain: "Being clever doesn't prevent you from doing things that are stupid. It enables you to do more grandiose forms of stupidity." [02:02]

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Counterfeiting Process and Techniques

Russ meticulously details the methods he employed to produce convincing fake currency, highlighting the blend of artistry and deception involved.

• Selecting Appropriate Materials:

  • [18:45] Utilizing 100% rag paper, which mimicked the tactile feel of genuine bills, Russ began the counterfeiting process.

• Incorporating Security Features:

  • [20:34] To replicate the distinctive red and blue silk fibers in real currency, Russ devised a method using diamond dust mixed into the ink.
  • Notable Quote:
    • Russ Swain: "The essence of creativity and crime are both based on uncertainty... the more you get away from uncertainty, the more you move into a realm of fear." [21:46]

• Serial Number Duplication:

  • [43:25] Without access to a professional numbering machine, Russ personally drew unique serial numbers to ensure limited circulation of his counterfeit bills.

• Laundering the Fake Money:

  • [44:24] Russ ingeniously laundered the counterfeit money by engaging in casual transactions at state fairs, gradually amassing a substantial sum to repay his loan.

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Downfall and Legal Consequences

Despite his elaborate schemes, Russ's counterfeiting operations were eventually uncovered, leading to significant personal and legal repercussions.

• Detection by the Secret Service:

  • [55:54] A vigilant security guard at a state fair noticed suspicious patterns in Russ's transactions, prompting an investigation by the Secret Service.
  • Notable Quote:
    • Russ Swain: "They were bedazzled by my creativity, but they also saw the criminal intent." [57:14]

• Confession and Arrest:

  • [58:12] Faced with undeniable evidence—including thumbprints on partially burned bills—Russ chose to confess, earning a measure of respect from the inspecting agent, Roger Rodak.
  • [62:52] In court, Agent Rodak argued for Russ's creative rather than malicious intent, influencing the judge's sentencing decision.

• Sentencing:

  • [63:43] Russ received a sentence of seven years probation, contingent upon repaying the government for the counterfeit bills he circulated.

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Personal Life and Redemption

Russ's criminal activities left indelible marks on his personal relationships and faith, yet his story also underscores themes of redemption and resilience.

• Impact on Family:

  • [75:04] Russ faced devastation from his wife and children, who struggled to reconcile the man they knew with his illicit actions. Ultimately, this led to a divorce, though amicably maintained post-separation with the support of his wife's family.

• Reconnecting with Faith:

  • [78:27] Excommunicated from the Mormon Church, Russ later managed to reintegrate into the faith community, albeit with increased privacy regarding his affiliation.

• Final Redemption:

  • [83:11] A heartwarming encounter with his former high school principal offered Russ a chance to atone for his past mischief through a collaborative forgery project, solidifying a meaningful legacy tied to his community.

• Notable Quote:

  • Russ Swain: "I felt like I was trading part of my soul and I didn't like it." [50:46]

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Conclusion

Russ Swain's narrative is a profound exploration of the complexities inherent in human behavior—where creativity meets ethical boundaries, and where personal failings can coexist with moments of genuine altruism. His story serves as a compelling testament to the enduring struggle between one's principles and the desperate measures one might take under pressure. Through heartfelt storytelling, Russ offers listeners invaluable insights into the human psyche, the consequences of our choices, and the possibility of redemption even after significant transgressions.

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Notable Quotes

1. Russ Swain: "Being clever doesn't prevent you from doing things that are stupid. It enables you to do more grandiose forms of stupidity." [00:02]
2. Russ Swain: "I thought, this is easy. Please excuse my son Ralph's absence from school. It worked so well." [26:15]
3. Russ Swain: "I used a very fine sable brush... It took several hours, but I pulled it off." [05:30]
4. Russ Swain: "Being clever doesn't prevent you from doing things that are stupid. It enables you to do more grandiose forms of stupidity." [02:02]
5. Russ Swain: "The essence of creativity and crime are both based on uncertainty... the more you get away from uncertainty, the more you move into a realm of fear." [21:46]
6. Russ Swain: "I felt like I was trading part of my soul and I didn't like it." [50:46]

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Key Takeaways

• Creativity vs. Morality: Russ's story underscores how creative problem-solving can sometimes lead individuals down ethically questionable paths, especially when under pressure.

• Consequences of Actions: His forays into forgery and counterfeiting had profound impacts on his personal life, including his marriage, relationship with his children, and standing within his faith community.

• Redemption and Forgiveness: Despite his criminal activities, Russ found moments of redemption and maintained meaningful relationships, illustrating the possibility of growth and forgiveness even after significant transgressions.

• Psychological Insights: The episode offers valuable perspectives on the human propensity to rationalize unethical behavior and the internal conflicts that arise from such actions.

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Final Thoughts

The Jordan Harbinger Show Episode 1129 presents a multifaceted narrative of Russ Swain, blending elements of crime, personal struggle, and redemption. It's an enlightening listen for anyone interested in understanding the depths of human behavior, the allure of illicit success, and the enduring quest for personal integrity.

Transcript

[Jordan Harbinger]

Coming up next on the Jordan Harbinger.

[Russ Swain]

Show, how can I think outside the box? And I thought, okay, remember that postage stamp? That was clever and it was thinking outside the box. And I will say, being clever doesn't prevent you from doing things that are stupid. It enables you to do more grandiose forms of stupidity.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets and skills of the world's most fascinating people people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker through long form conversations with a variety of amazing folks, from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, performers, even the occasional former jihadi investigative journalist or Emmy nominated comedian. If you're new to the show or want to tell your friends about the show, I suggest our episode starter packs. These are collections of our favorite episodes on topics like persuasion and negotiation, psychology and geopolitics, disinformation, China, North Korea, crime and cults, and more that'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. Just visit jordanharbinger.com start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started. Today on the show, Russ Swain. He's a Mormon, a counterfeiter and an art forger. And yes, that sure sounds like a contradiction. And this is a story of his attempt to essentially walk that line. Russ career began when he created a fake postage stamp in order to get a job. And it all snowballed from there resulting in huge amounts of counterfeit U.S. currency. But he got away with it, sort of. I love this conversation. We had a lot of fun with it. I think he's just a really subtly entertaining guest that you'll love as well. I think you'll know what I mean by subtly entertaining once we start this conversation here. So here we go with Russ Swain. So I read the book and there's so many funny things in there that you could theoretically never get away with now. And there's so many great stories in here. And I just want to say it must have been hard to write a book about a lot of the places where you made your biggest mistakes in life. And I don't know if I could do that. I don't know if I want to be that honest with myself. Does that make sense?

[Russ Swain]

Makes total sense. And I was reluctant at first as well. It's a widely known fact that bad decisions make for pretty interesting stories. There was a lot of conversation about this stuff with my best friend Mike, who suggested that we do this. And I was reluctant. And it seems that our sins cast long shadows over our lives sometimes. And my friend Mike says, but you can't beat yourself up about that. Without those mistakes that we make, our lives would be little more than a paper puppet show. He says, the name we give our mistakes is experience. And if you can accept that, forgive yourself and move on and learn from it, then maybe there's something cathartic about this. So that was the approach we took, and it was cathartic to just open up, give yourself a little bit of self acceptance, and say, you know what? We make mistakes and we move on from them.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So on the plus side, your mistakes are entertaining. And that's what we're going to talk about today.

[Russ Swain]

Oh, that's very nice of you, Greg.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Tell me how you went from essentially an art school grad to a forger to a con man with a postage stamp. You essentially turned on almost a dime, or a postage stamp, if you will. And that was the beginning of this whole thing.

[Russ Swain]

Yeah, that was my first attempt at counterfeiting. After art school, there was one potential job in Ogden, Utah. It was an advertising agency. They were looking for an art director. And they said, we don't want to see anything but a resume. And I thought, well, how am I going to stand out among the other applicants? And so the resume that I sent in, I said, if you're reading my resume, it's a testament that I know how to think outside the box. Because I hand painted the postage stamp in which it came in. And they quickly grabbed the envelope and they were rubbing their finger over examining it. My gosh, the postage stamp was hand painted. That's pretty damn creative. And so that made my resume stand out, and that was pretty fun. I got the job.

[Jordan Harbinger]

We want this criminal on our roster immediately.

[Russ Swain]

Yeah, we want this guy right now. He just saved 14 cents.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So for people who are unclear about this, because at first I was like, wait, how do you draw a postage stamp? The answer is you're not supposed to do that. You go to the post office, you buy these books of stamps that stick onto things. And I know people over 40 are like, Jordan, are you really explaining this? Look, there's a lot of people who are under 30 listening to this show, and they probably have never seen a potion stamp that sticks onto things because they're all printed now, right?

[Russ Swain]

Oh, that's right. Yeah.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I can't even Tell you the last time I got a piece of mail where there was a stamp stuck on there that somebody had hand placed on there that wasn't barcode or some kind of thing rolled on there with machine.

[Russ Swain]

This was 40 years ago. So you licked the stamp, you stuck it to the envelope, handwrote everything. It was a different world back then.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And you decided to, let's say it's a little American flag with, I don't know, cannon on it or whatever. The old stamps used the first class mail. You basically just drew that so well that the post office went, yeah, that's a stamp, and sent that thing along the machines or whatever they were using, or maybe it was human eye back then, that's a stamp. And delivered the letter. So that was the proof in the pudding that you were a good enough artist to get this thing done. But stamps, it's hard to explain. It's a sticker, right? So it's got the edge at least is 3D. You could run your finger over it or look at it and see that it was drawn on there. Or did you draw that too?

[Russ Swain]

I drew that too. I used a very fine sable brush. It happened at that time that the postal service had stopped printing dead presidents on the postage stamps. And this particular stamp, I thought it was beautiful. It was these exotic butterflies. And I looked at him, I thought, wow, whoever designed that did a hell of a job. And I almost wanted to recreate it myself. And I thought, well, why don't I? And on the serrated edge, I thought, if I use this fine sable brush and just put a hint of a shadow on one edge and a hint of a highlight on the other, and then just duplicate with precision, copying it line for line, stroke for stroke, using these tiny little sable brushes. It took several hours, but I pulled it off. And I thought, hopefully this will make an impression on whoever sees it. And apparently it did. So I got the job. I was really happy.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So it's not really good roi for time if you're just trying to save on postage. But it was great roi for time if you were trying to get a job, which was what you were trying.

[Russ Swain]

To get a job. Correct.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You think nowadays if that happened, somebody would call the secret service or whatever and that would be the end of your job hunt, I think, because you'd go to jail back then. They probably just went, oh, this clever little scamp, he drew the stamp on there. That's a felony. But whatever, we're bullying to overlook that, right?

[Russ Swain]

Yeah, I'm glad they overlooked it. I don't know if you see a thousand mailed pieces in a day, I think you just pass it on.

[Jordan Harbinger]

For sure. Yeah, for sure. I think it's more the confession letter inside the envelope that would have gotten you in trouble, I think.

[Russ Swain]

True that.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Okay, so you needed to stand out. You draw the stamp on there. And after that, did forging or counterfeiting things get easier or was it just kind of like, ah, that was a one off. Now I work at this company. I have no intention of doing that again.

[Russ Swain]

Yeah, I wasn't really planning on doing that again until I thought, okay, I want to open up my own studio. And that little graphic design studio actually was an out of the chute, galloping success from the time that it opened. I got a couple of large clients and they liked the fact that they could deal with me as a designer one on one and they didn't have to go through a chain of people. And it was a business school that was one of my first big clients. And they had an office in Ogden. They also had another school in Provo and the work that I was doing for brochures and that caught the attention of their New York office who was the head of, I guess it was a national chain of these little colleges. I won't mention the name because I don't want to get anybody in trouble or especially myself.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Especially yourself. I was going to say especially yourself. Yeah, no kidding.

[Russ Swain]

But he said, hey, we really like your approach to design and you're making our school looked really great. And I thought, terrific. And he says, we'd like to have you design the brochure that we use nationwide. And I thought, this is going to be great because we had a little print shop as well. And I thought, this is going to assure my success as a designer, as a printer. And we've got this one huge client that will feed us for a long time. Problem was, it took all the money, all the credit that I had to open the studio, get the print shop going and typesetting equipment and things like that. I had to find an outside source to finance this. So I went to a loan shark and I borrowed at a usurious rate of interest, $10,000. Which back in those days.

[Jordan Harbinger]

What year was this?

[Russ Swain]

This was in 1984.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Okay, I'm gonna do an inflation calculation on that. 1984, $10,000. Yeah, that's 30 grand in today's money. That's an annual salary for somebody who's making, let's say minimum wage. That's a lot of Money.

[Russ Swain]

But I thought, okay, I only need this for 30 days. And so that's fine, I'll pay it and I'll be fine because this will be great. It's a national company, they're going to pay the bills and so forth. And I put my heart and soul. I mean, this thing had extraordinary folds. It had foil stamping, it had blind embossed. The logo looked sharp. And this was before where you could fax things faxing was rudimentary. I mean, it was rough. So I would send him line art and saying, this is the kind of photograph. This is where we show students this. And they said, great, great. It looks beautiful. Love the composition. We love the layout. This is going to be great. What I didn't anticipate because I was trying to think nationally, I thought, everybody's money spends the same. And so there was this really attractive black girl that was one of the students in the photo, and muscular toned Asian fellow who was also very attractive. These guys were model quality people that we used to set up for the photo shoot on this. The old guy in New York, he was a Jewish fellow, which surprised me because he said, I can't accept this. This was after it went to print. I said, why can't you? I says, you okayed everything. And he said, because you put, pardon the expression back in those days, a Chinaman and N word in my brochure.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Geez, that's terrible.

[Russ Swain]

I said, pardon me. And I started backpedaling like crazy. He says, no. He says, we try to keep our clientele a cut above those kind of people. And he says, and you just threw down the welcome man. I said, with all due respect, I mean, you being of the Jewish persuasion. And that ignited something in him that he says, oh, so now you're calling me. He says, a Jew boy? And I says, I did not use that term. I said, I'm trying to be as delicate as I can here. And he said, you know what? This conversation is over. And I'm not paying you for these brochures and I will not accept them. I was flummoxed. I was flabbergasted, and I didn't know what to do. And I thought, I don't think there's any begging anything that I can do to resurrect this. And how am I going to pay back this loan shark who was very menacing and frightening to me at a very usurious rate. And I thought I may have just sunk my ship. So I thought, how can I think outside the box? And I Thought, okay, remember that postage stamp? That was clever and it was thinking outside the box. And I will say, being clever doesn't prevent you from doing things that are stupid. What it does is it enables you to do more grandiose forms of stupidity, which is what I did in thinking, if I can recreate a postage stamp, what is money other than paper and ink? And I know the bricks and mortar of printing. I know paper, I know design. And all of a sudden, this seemed like the most brilliant idea that I could have thought of to solve a problem.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I will say it is a little surprising to hear how this man reacted, because you're right, Jewish people, a lot of people are cringing right now. I am also of Jewish descent, so I feel like I'm qualified to talk about this without offending half the planet. First of all, even in the civil rights era, Jewish people and people of color, African Americans, stood side by side during that movement, largely. So it is a little bit more surprising when you hear, like, old white dude, you think, okay, maybe there's some racism, generational stuff. But when you hear old Jewish dude, it's, yeah, you have, like, a higher percentage of them being little bit more tolerant, you would think. And also New York.

[Russ Swain]

Sure.

[Jordan Harbinger]

The guy in New York City, typically also even more liberal.

[Russ Swain]

More so. I agree.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It's surprising that he reacted that way. He sounds like just a piece of crap. This is not a good guy.

[Russ Swain]

Kind of a jerk. Yeah, he was kind of a jerk. Yeah.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah. So just a note for people who are wondering about that, because your assumption that he was maybe more tolerant was reasonable, in my opinion. I would have made the same assumption. An older Jewish guy. Yeah, he's going to love this, especially that he okayed everything. But I didn't see the Chinaman on the front because you sent him written description or whatever of the brochure.

[Russ Swain]

Sheesh.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So this loan shark guy, how do you meet somebody like this in the first place? Because you don't seem like the type of guy. First of all, you're Mormon, correct?

[Russ Swain]

Correct.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It doesn't seem like Mormons and loan sharks are hanging out in the same strip clubs.

[Russ Swain]

That's very true. And I am integrally a Mormon. It's combed into my being. It's impossible for me to shed my Mormon skin. And so what I did in deciding then to print money to solve this problem, it was a performative contradiction. I know it was going against my faith, my personal beliefs, and my own inner core. But I also knew that, okay, I've got a family that I'm responsible for, and I need to draw on all of my resources to solve this problem. And so I thought that's the way to do it. It was like my moral compass was finally lying somewhere in a magnet factory. I didn't know which way to turn at that point.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, desperation, the loan shark. How did you even meet this guy? You don't walk around going, hey, does anybody know anybody who will lend me a ridiculous amount of money at a ridiculous interest rate? How do you find somebody like this? Surely somebody pointed you his way. Or did you grow up with this guy? Where did this guy come from?

[Russ Swain]

Yeah, one of my best friends in high school had started a small t shirt printing company. And I was talking to him and he said, do you know what I did to get my t shirt business started? He says, there's this guy named Tommy, and he's a rough guy. He's very menacing, and he'll charge you through the nose as an interest rate and he'll scare you to death. But he's got the money and he'll loan it to you if you can pass his test. And he says, and I can vouch for you. And I says, great, that's what I want to do. So anyway, it was a referral kind of thing, and we got together, we met, and he says, okay, I'll loan you the money. And he did.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Where did you meet him? I know you met him in a place that not a lot of mormons maybe hang out. Or do they?

[Russ Swain]

No, they don't. Yeah, that's part of the contradiction. He wanted to meet in Salt Lake city at a stripper bar near the airport. And I said, really? I'd never been inside a stripper bar, and I didn't know what to expect. And it wasn't quite as raucous as they are nowadays, probably, but they had a little bit of standards. But anyway, we met in a stripper bar where he chose to conduct business. That was his office. And at the time, I didn't understand that at all. He didn't really observe the strippers or pay any attention. He would sip on a beer. I was drinking coke because of my background. And he chose that place because that's where he could read people. He wanted to read you because you were distracted. And he was searching for signs of body language, for confidence, for whatever it was. I wish I could ask him. But anyway, that's where he chose to conduct business every time we met.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's an interesting idea, because if he's going to meetings that where he has to decide if somebody's essentially credit worthy. He's not able to run a JPMorgan Chase background credit check on the people that are walking in. He only has a little bit of data, and people can mask that data if they're trying really hard. But if there's a bunch of naked women around, maybe it's harder to do that because you're operating with less bandwidth to mask whatever he happens to be looking for. That's an interesting strategy.

[Russ Swain]

That was very well stated.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It's a fascinating strategy though, right? Because otherwise, where would you do that kind of thing? You'd have to do a lot more work to figure out if somebody was a credit risk than just observing them. So I guess also you didn't have to worry about running into guys from church at a script. Well, you actually. Who knows? You never really know.

[Russ Swain]

Who knows, but nothing would be spoken.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Right? Yeah. Nobody would say anything. I didn't see you there. Nope. No, I was out of town on business. So he loans you this money. Does he just give you a stack of cash? How does it work?

[Russ Swain]

He gave me a check and I took it to the bank, but he expected cash when I paid back his loan.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So that's a little bit of money laundering then. Probably. If he's paying you with a check and it's a business expense and you're paying him back in cash and that cash just vanishes. Okay. He had another angle that was working there for sure.

[Russ Swain]

He did indeed.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah.

[Russ Swain]

Wow.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Okay, so the guy in New York, the racist guy, he doesn't pay you for the brochures. Now you've got a loan from a loan shark. What was the interest rate? Like 10%, something like that. Crazy.

[Russ Swain]

It was 10% per month.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Oh, my gosh.

[Russ Swain]

So that's 120% or something like that.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Oh my gosh, that's. And now you have no hope of getting paid back at this point. Yikes.

[Russ Swain]

And I was living pretty close to the bone since I just started my business a handful of months prior. So I panicked. Suddenly this idea came to me that I know all about paper. I know about ink, I know about design. I can print the money. Money is nothing more than paper and ink. And why can't I just do that myself? It was a Hail Mary kind of thing.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, but you can't just buy the paper that money is on. Isn't that sort of special?

[Russ Swain]

No. It's created by Cranes Co. And they will only sell that paper to the US Treasury. Even the composition of the paper is different for the sake of durability. It's got silk fibers and things like that. And I thought, okay, I can't get my hands on any of that, but cranes will sell to printers for letterheads and things like that. They have a paper, it's called 100% rag. It has no wood pulp. It's just cotton fibers. And so it feels the same. It has the same tactile feel as currency, and it's a little bit more expensive. And it happened that I was doing a letterhead for an attorney, and he had requested this to be on 100% rag paper. And I thought, perfect, I've got a couple of reams of that, and I'm going to use it to at least see if this works. And so my lovely wife and kids were going out of town for a camping trip with her parents. I was invited, of course, but I said, no, I got too many deadlines. So I just put out the clothes sign, told everybody that we were all on vacation on a camping trip. And then I went to work to see if I couldn't just produce, at least give it a shot. So the paper was white, and I thought, but I can print the background color of money, and I have a good eye for color, so I can match it perfectly. And I went to work mixing the inks, and I printed a full bleed, solid background color of money. It worked. And so all of a sudden, I got a little hope. I thought, well, I've got the paper now. Except that as I looked at these bills, they've got these red and blue silk fibers right through.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, the real bills have those tiny little hairs, basically minuscule.

[Russ Swain]

Yeah, right, hairs. And I thought, well, if I printed the background, couldn't I print those little hairs? And so I went into the dark room. We had a little black piece of carpet, and I pulled some fibers out of it, put them on my graphic camera, and I shrank it down to 25%, which is as small as it would go back in those days, it was before computers. And I photographed them. I shot a plate, and I thought, okay, if I print these red and then flip it upside down and print it the opposite way in blue, you know, let's see what happens. It worked beautifully. And I thought, okay, so now the fear was evaporating because I was getting caught up in the creativity. I will say this. The essence of creativity and crime are both based on uncertainty. And the farther you get away from uncertainty, the more you move into a realm of fear. And I'll get into that later. Because you're moving into the realm of risk, I guess, is what I'm saying.

[Jordan Harbinger]

When you made this work, you must have been pretty excited, because I know the feeling of getting something to work. You got this theory. No one else has ever done it. You didn't just look it up. You figured it out yourself, and then it works. You kind of get a little bit giddy. Did you have a feeling like that? Oh, my gosh, I'm going to do it.

[Russ Swain]

That is so perceptive of you because that forced out all of the fear. All of a sudden, I had something by the tail here. A masterpiece by the tail, as far as I was concerned. Now the creative side of me just completely took over. It's like scratching a creative itch. Okay, let's see what we can do here. So now, how can I reproduce this? I had this graphic camera, so I thought, I'm going to use photographic technique as much as I can. Except that looking at the fine engraver of printed money, I thought, wow, they make this really hard because there's so much detail in this. And I realized every time I try to photograph this, I can hold a shadow.in the highlight area only if I overexpose it, but I have to underexpose it. So I started making little masks to put over the face of Andrew Jackson so that I could overexpose this part, underexpose that part, and little by little, it's. Damn, it works. This looks perfect. I've got the little fibers, I've got the black ink. The quality of the printing is excellent. And I thought, damn. But it doesn't feel the same. What's missing? I got the paper, I got the currency. New bills feel like very fine sandpaper. And it just happened that one of my clients was a jeweler and she owned a jewelry store, and she offered free diamond ring cleaning. And it was just something that she mentioned to me one day when I was in there. I said, what is this stuff? And she says, oh, that's when I clean rings. It's got this vacuum attachment and a polisher, and it pulls all the residue off, and I sort through it and I get little scraps of gold and diamonds and stuff. I use the gold to fix fissures in the rings and so forth. But the diamond dust, it's just ground up diamonds. And I thought, for some reason, I just thought of that stuff, and I thought it wouldn't dissolve if I mixed it in the ink because it's little minuscule dusts of diamond. And it's so fine, it probably wouldn't come up my press. So I asked her, I says, hey, what do you do with that stuff? She says, I throw it away. You want some? I says, yeah, I do. Do you mind? And she says, yeah, take all you want. So anyway, I took this little bag of this diamond dust, took it back, put it in the ink, stirred it around. I thought, let's see what happens. Because it's so fine, it's like baby powder. But it wouldn't dissolve and so it didn't affect the ink. The darkness, the color value of the ink.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, it wouldn't absorb anything. It would just be covered with the ink and that's it forever.

[Russ Swain]

Yeah. In any kind of creative endeavor, you always look for that one area that creates the magic. And that diamond dust was that little part that created magic. It came off that press. When it dried, I felt it and I thought, bingo. That feels like new currency. I can't believe it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, I can definitely see what you mean by the creativity taking over. That gives way to excitement, which pushes the fear out. Because now you're not shaking, thinking, oh my gosh, what if the police find me? You're just thinking, wow, this looks like a real $20 bill. And it feels like a real $20 bill. I did it.

[Russ Swain]

I got a masterpiece by the tail. Creatively.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Exactly.

[Russ Swain]

I was really excited. The problem was, how am I going to launder it? Because I realized I have to sear off my conscience somehow. But in searing off my conscience, I thought, but how do I mask my anxiety? That's really hard. If you've grown up the fair haired Mormon boy your whole life and now all of a sudden you're not just a naughty child, you're a first rate sinner. You're doing something across the line.

[Jordan Harbinger]

This was not your first attempt at forgery. What's this about report cards that you had created for friends as something like a business back in the day? I want to hear about this because I think it's funny. Of course you would never think about doing this as an adult, except for the fact that you ended up using your art skills for the dark side a little bit when you were a teenager as well.

[Russ Swain]

Yeah, that's exactly right. My mom was 46 years old when I was born, so I was essentially being raised by someone of other kids grandparents era. Penmanship was very important back in those days. And so my mother, who was also a schoolteacher, had been really strict about teaching us really good penmanship. It happened that my penmanship matched the penmanship style of the previous generation. So being raised in Ogden, Utah, which is a ski town, we wanted to go skiing every chance we could. And so that meant we had to slough school. So I could write these really well crafted excuse notes that looked like it was legitimately from someone's parents. Because kids of this generation don't write with that kind of penmanship. And so I thought, this is easy. Please excuse my son Ralph's absence from school. He has a dentist appointment, a doctor appointment, whatever. And it worked. And pretty soon kids that I didn't even know were coming to me asking me for excuses. I need to slough, I need to go skiing, I need to do whatever. And it worked really well. The problem was we were skipping so much school that we were going to be grounded for life if we couldn't get our grades up.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Also, nobody's teeth are that clean. Come on.

[Russ Swain]

Right?

[Jordan Harbinger]

You've been to dentist four times this month.

[Russ Swain]

That's exactly right. So now the grades are slipping and how are we going to fix that? And I thought, if I can forge these excuses, how hard would it be to forger report card, a little bit of paper and ink again. So I started manufacturing for my wayward friends report cards. And I'd say, hey, for a buck I'll get you the excuse to get you in and out of class. But then I'm going to have to have five bucks. And that was a good chunk of change.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I'm doing the inflation calculation on this right now. What year was this?

[Russ Swain]

Oh, this was in 1967. 68.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You said five bucks for a report card. That's $47. Holy smokes.

[Russ Swain]

That'll get you a ski pass in those days. But it was worth it. And the well heeled students in the class would come and say, okay, I need a report card. And I say, okay, but it's going to cost you a buck because we got to have your parents signature on your real report card with a note that says, I promise my son will do better. And it was a little bit of a business. It certainly gave me dating money on the weekend. And so I was happy and know really well until one of the students ratted me out. And from that point on, my feet were a virtual path to the principal's office. And I was in really some pretty serious trouble.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, I cannot imagine that must have been a really big deal because not only are you forging the notes to get people out of school, then you're forging the fake report cards, then you're forging the parent signatures. On the real report cards to say they saw them. I mean, there's just a sort of definition of a slippery slope in you're making. One problem begets another problem begets another problem and suddenly you're just in way over your head. It was only a matter of time till you got caught for sure.

[Russ Swain]

That's true. But when you're that young, you don't have the ability to assess risk the way that you do when life gives you more experience. So to me, it was just a lot of creative fun, I guess.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Now grab your inkjet and print out some crispy hundred dollar bills. It's time to support the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by the Moonshot Podcast. If you love hearing the real stories behind world changing tech, you've got to check out the Moonshot Podcast. This isn't just a deep dive into cool gadgets. It's a behind the scenes look at Alphabet's Moonshot factory, AKA X, where some of the craziest, most ambitious ideas of the last 15 years were born. We're talking self driving cars, AI that writes its own code, robots, laser powered Internet, even tech that predicts wildfires. Stuff that sounds impossible until it's not. And the guy leading the conversation is Astro Teller, literally the captain of moonshots. In this 10 episode limited series, he sits down with people who built these wild ideas and tackles some big questions like can we actually achieve the clean energy dream? Can technology help save the planet? What I love about this podcast is it's not just about futuristic tech. It's all about the mindset behind innovation. The risks, the failures, and the relentless optimism it takes to push boundaries. So if you've ever wondered how impossible ideas become reality, the Moonshot Podcast is your kind of show. Just premiered on March 10 with new episodes every week. Find it wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is also sponsored by Quince. Upgrading your wardrobe can feel like a serious investment, especially if you're after quality. And quality usually comes with a hefty price tag. Until we found Quince Take their Mongolian cashmere sweaters. Just 50 bucks for the kind of soft luxe knit that usually costs triple the price. And Jen is rocking head to toe quints from their 14 karat gold necklaces and washable silk tanks to their stretch pont pants. Is it ponte? I don't even know how you pronounce that. So how does quints keep prices 50 to 80% lower than similar brands? They cut out the middleman and they work directly with top tier factories, meaning you get premium pieces without the premium markup. And they're doing it right. Partnering only with ethical manufacturers that use high quality materials and only the best children assembling these clothes. But it's not only clothes. Quinte has everything from bedding and baby essentials to travel must haves. So instead of spending a fortune on just a few luxury pieces, build a wardrobe and home that is effortlessly stylish without the guilt and the designer price tag. Indulge in affordable luxury. Go to quints.com Jordan for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q U I N C E dot com Jordan to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com Jordan if you're wondering how I managed to book all these great authors, thinkers, creators, forgers, counterfeiters every single week, it is because of my network. And I'm teaching you how to build your network for free [e-mail]. this is not a schmoozy, gross, awkward course. It is all about making you a better, better connector, a better colleague, a better friend and a better peer. In a few minutes a day, very decidedly non cringe, very down to earth and super easy. And many of the guests on the show already subscribe and contribute to the course. Come on and join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong. You can find the [e-mail] now back to Russ Swain. So growing up Mormon, all I really know about the Mormon Church. Well, I know a few things here and there. A lot of blonde people, a lot of getting married when you're like, I don't know, 20 and having a huge number of kids.

[Russ Swain]

Huge number of kids.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And the mission where I'll run into Mormon kids in the middle of places where, honestly, tourists should not generally be going. And they're standing on the street corner with a sign that says free English lessons in Albanian or whatever. And I'm like, what are you doing here? Did you do one of those?

[Russ Swain]

Yeah, I did. I went to Brazil.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Cool.

[Russ Swain]

They give you a crash course in the language and expect that you're going to pick it up more fluently as you go through and was great. But when you get there in a foreign country and you're just dropped off, I remember in the book I pointed out it sounds like everybody's talking at once and I felt like they sounded like a bunch of parrots whose crackers had been laced with crystal Meth. It was like I can't understand anybody.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Even Brazilians feel that way. I don't know. I'll have to check my inbox after this. It's going to be full of interesting notes from people of all various faiths and nationalities. So how long are the missions? Are they two years?

[Russ Swain]

Two years? Yeah.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Wow.

[Russ Swain]

And Mormons feel their faith very strongly. And growing up, it's like you go to church on Sunday, it feels like you don't get out until Tuesday. It's a big part of your life. And I had just deluded myself into thinking, yeah, I'm just a regular fair haired Mormon boy. But there's something about the strictness of the religion that sometimes relates to people and they like conformity and they like to go by the rules. But I was always a little bit rebellious, so I pushed against it a little bit. But I was very committed for the two years that I was in Brazil.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It must have been a real shock going from Ogden, Utah. I've never been there, but I can kind of imagine what a mid sized city in Utah is like to Sao Paulo, Brazil.

[Russ Swain]

Yeah. Which at the time I think had 7 million people.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It's probably three times that size now. But that's just, that's a place that when you see it from satellite pictures or from YouTube, you just go, this is pure chaos. Ogden, Utah. It makes Ogden, Utah look like a rural farming village. It's just the size difference alone and the traffic and the air quality and the music. I can't imagine more night and day. Ogden, Utah and Sao Paulo, Brazil.

[Russ Swain]

That is so perceptive of you. Yeah, that's exactly what it was. It was a huge cultural shock. And I thought it is so rigid the way that it's organized. It's like being in the military. And you wonder if this impressive two years, if it's ever going to end. But I had a moment. I was really wrestling. Am I going to do any good here? I pointed this out. In the book, you're assigned a companion that you're with all the time. You feel like a Siamese twin practically. You never get space alone unless you go to the bathroom. But we'd had a hard day of talking to people. We were walking home, it was late at night and light rain was falling. And I says, hey, let's duck into this little neighborhood bar, just get some hot chocolate or something just to keep us going. And when I was there, this young fellow, he was maybe early 20s, he had no shoes, he was wearing just a pair of shorts, no shirt, but he had a bucket of crabs, and he wanted to sell these crabs to the owner of this little neighborhood bar. And he stuck his stick into the bucket and one of the crabs grabbed a hold of it, and he's swinging it around saying, look how fresh my crabs are. And of course, he's speaking in Portuguese. And it dawned on me as he sang, I thought, I understand what he's saying. Little by little, the language barrier had been evaporating. And everybody in the bar, they were clapping at this little one man, impromptu circus show. And we were laughing. And the owner came out, shook hands, showing that a transaction had been made. Everybody was clapping. I thought, I can't have an experience like this in the United States. I'm looking at the cobblestone streets that are wet and shiny and the halo of the street lamps. And I thought, this is magical. And I've got to embrace everything that's different from my culture and throw myself into experiencing this culture. And it was extremely stimulating and it made all the difference in the world to me. And so I enjoyed every moment after that.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I can imagine as an artist also just having a lot of new input is valuable.

[Russ Swain]

Yeah, that's very true. That is so true. And so now I was absorbing all of these experiences like a sponge, because I wanted to. I don't know if it deepened my commitment to my faith. It deepened my commitment to life itself and certainly made me more appreciative of other cultures, other races, because we're all same fabric with different experiences. And it seems to me that we increase our intelligence. If we can learn to look at life not just from our own narrow field of view, but from another culture's viewpoint, then we get a broader perspective.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, I. Man, I could not agree more. I'm trying so hard not to go off on a travel tangent of my own because I have so many other things to talk to you about here. I love everything you're saying here. It makes complete sense. And I couldn't recommend traveling any more than I already do. I think it does change your life when you stay somewhere for a long period of time. You're not there for a week, you're not at a hotel, you are walking around the market looking at somebody selling crabs and learning the language, and you really get all those cultural nuances. Two years and a place like that is a long enough time for you to really absorb a lot of nuance, a lot of language and a lot of culture.

[Russ Swain]

You're someone who understands the difference between world travel and tourism. I can tell Just by that attitude right there.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yes. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, I've stayed in a lot of places for a year, 10 months, whatever. Even several months. There's just a huge shift that happens after. It's hard for me to pinpoint, but four, five, six weeks, two months, three months, it probably depends on the person and the place and everything like that, but there's a shift that happens where you just go, all right, I live here now. Not. Okay. When I get home, I got to remember to throw the blanket in the laundry and all that stuff goes away. You start thinking in the other language after however many months, then your foot's on the gas in this different kind of understanding. Okay, so you got all these bills, you made them, you're pretty happy with the product. You've been in your print shop while your family's been away camping or whatever, making the ink of the paper. Right? But aren't the bills just spotless and unused? That's a little suspicious.

[Russ Swain]

And I wanted them to look like they'd been circulated. So I thought I used to refer to, you know, I need some walking around money when you go out somewhere. So I thought, you know what? I'll just wad them up, shove them in my shoes and walk around on them. And it's amazing how that gave them that well worn look of circulation.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's funny.

[Russ Swain]

Okay, so this is great, but like I said, I had to sear off my conscience. But I had never had any real experience other than in high school with forging report cards of being a bad guy. And I thought, how do I mask the anxiety? How am I going to launder this? I had no idea. But I've got all this money that's spendable, I think it is. And I had to try it out, but I was anxious, I was sweating. I went into a little drugstore. They had these little corner stores back in those days. And I thought, I'm going to give myself away just because I'm so anxious. And I looked around and I reached over and I picked up a box of tampons. I took them to the counter. The lady could see that I was a little bit unnerved. She says, are you okay? I says, it's so embarrassing buying something like this, especially in front of a lovely lady like yourself. I don't want you to think that I'm strange or wonder as a guy what I'm going to do with these. She says, no, it's for your mom or your girlfriend or something. I says. And she says, look, we'll put these in a little brown bag so it'll be our secret. And snickered a little bit, like, here's this aw, shucks kind of guy. She handed me back my change. So the rest of the day I just went around buying tampons.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So you have 40 boxes of tampons in your office.

[Russ Swain]

I've got 40 boxes of tampons. And I took them home. And when my wife came home and she discovered them, she thought, what the hell is this? I said, remember that night you made me get up and go over to 7:11 in the middle of the night when you needed a box of those? I just didn't want that to happen again. She says, I'm sorry you were traumatized by it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Lifetime supply.

[Russ Swain]

As I mentioned, the essence of creativity and crime are based on the uncertainty. And the more you get away from uncertainty, the more you get into the realm of risk. And that's frightening at some level, but at some other level, it becomes very bracing, even stimulating. And that's what I found out the more that I got used to this. So after I bought a bunch of tampons and it worked very well, it kind of emboldens you a little bit. Now you got confidence that this is going to work. And so now you spread out and try different avenues. And I remember distinctly there was always this feeling that any second something could happen, you could be called out or whatever, that little bit of fear. It's very stimulating, it's very bracing, and it pumps a lot of adrenaline, and it's exhausting. But by the time you go home, you fall into a deep sleep because you're so exhausted by it all, by the emotion of it. But then when you wake up in the morning, you realize your feet can't wait to get back and feel that again, feel that stimulation, feel that risk, feel the adrenaline pumping through your veins. And I didn't realize it at the time, but I was slowly getting addicted to my own body chemistry of adrenaline, that rush. I needed that fix, and I couldn't wait to get back to it. Biblically, there's a passage that said two things that God hates. One is a lying tongue. Another is feet that are quick to run to mischief. And I didn't realize, but I'm getting some foot trouble. And I'm living exactly what God doesn't want you to live.

[Jordan Harbinger]

How ironic and coincidental that you are literally putting the money on your feet to make it look weathered. And that Bible verse. Yeah, no wonder that was fresh in your head. Feet that are quick to run to mischief and. Or stepping on literal forged $20 bills. By the way, did they smell like feet? Were you spending foot smelling money?

[Russ Swain]

I'm sure they did. Money has a kind of a crappy smell anyway.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, it does. I can just imagine her being like, what is that smell? And why is this slightly wet? Where have you been keeping this money? It's kind of a funny visual. Man, this guy's so nervous, even he's sweating through his pants pocket. The money's damp. Oh, my gosh. What about the serial numbers on the bills? Because doesn't that take a different kind of machine to do? 10,001, 10,002, 10,003.

[Russ Swain]

That's very perceptive. Yeah. And I did not have a numbering machine.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, why would you?

[Russ Swain]

Yeah, I had no use for one. So what I had to do was I had to create serial numbers. I would blow a sample up on my graphic camera to 400%, and I would precisely draw them crisply, these serial numbers. But I was printing them six up to a page because I wanted to control the quality. All I needed to solve this problem was ten grand, and I was already printing a couple of hundred thousand dollars worth. So what I did was I just made sure that I had six different serial numbers, and that meant I could never print or I could never pass more than six bills in any one place. And so that seemed fair enough.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I assume you didn't just pay the loan shark back with a stack of fake $20 bills with the same serial number on them either, right? So you had to buy the tampons, get the. Did the tampon thing do the trick? Did you just eventually collect the 10 grand that you needed in the time that you needed it?

[Russ Swain]

That wasn't moving fast enough. And I could see that my time deadline. I had 30 days to do this. My lovely wife and the kids got home from their little outing up in the mountains, and she says, how's business? Fine. Everything's fine. I lied. And I said, in fact, things are so good. I says, you know what I want to do? I want to get away my own self. Maybe take the weekend, go run up to Sun Valley, Idaho. Because I thought, okay, in Sun Valley, Idaho. Come on, it's Idaho. A bunch of farming communities and people like that. If something quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, it's probably a duck. So I thought Idaho would be a safe bet, because I don't want to spend a lot of this in Utah.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Oh, yeah, Ogden, Utah. You might run out of tampon shops, right Right.

[Russ Swain]

How many tampons can you buy in.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Ogden before people start giving you side eye? Yeah.

[Russ Swain]

Oh, exactly. So I went up there because I thought, let's get out of this state. If anybody ever starts looking around, they'll look in Idaho. So we went up to Sun Valley and my then wife, she gets up early, goes to bed early. By 10 o'clock, she wants to hit the sack. And I said, you know what, I want to run over to the Idaho State Fair because it just seemed like a good place to at least try it out. And the hawkers, the gawkers, those guys that, hey, buddy, come on over here. You look like you're a sportsman. Let's see if you can throw a basketball. You know what? That'd be fun. Maybe I can win something. But all I got is a 20. Hey, that's fine, man. I can break change. And because he's taking in all these ones and fives and tens, so he's looking for a way to get rid of some of them. And so he welcomes taking a twenty dollar bill. And I'd shoot the baskets and say, I guess I'm no good at shooting baskets. I'd love to stick around to try it again, but my girlfriend's waiting. Every guy can relate to that. You don't want to anger your girlfriend, but you walk to the next one. Hey, man, you want to come over and throw some pitches of jugs? It's amazing how quickly you can launder a lot of money for a dollar throw at a state fair. And I had to keep going back to the car to unload all of this currency, stash it under the seat of the car and so forth. And I was quickly amassing a good deal of money, so I thought, I want to do that again. So I put on a baseball cap and a jacket and I went back through and nobody seemed to recognize me.

[Jordan Harbinger]

They didn't recognize you or they just didn't care. Baseball cap and a jacket. Not an amazing disguise, right?

[Russ Swain]

No, it's not an amazing disguise, but hey, their job isn't to pay attention to anything but collecting some money and getting some sucker to chuck a ball. So anyway, that worked better than anything. And so I bought a gym bag and I just stuffed it full of the cash. And I realized, okay, when we go home, I've got my date with Tommy the Shark coming up, and I pretty well got the money that I'm going to need. So what I did was I'd walk into a credit union and I said, I'm the Junior high school band teacher, and we've had a big car wash fundraiser. We got to buy new band uniforms. And this is all the money from the car wash. Could I just get some hundreds for all of this? I don't want to deposit it just yet, but I just need some hundreds so we can buy our band uniforms. And everybody wanted to help out the junior high school band teacher. So I was lying through both sides of my mouth, just trying to cover my tracks. And it was working very well.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Isn't there a thing with uv or was this not a thing back then? Real bills, they glow. Or real bills don't glow under the UV light. Or is that only $100 bills? Or is that only from 1995 on? Do you know what I'm talking about?

[Russ Swain]

Yeah. And that was the case back in those days as well.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Okay.

[Russ Swain]

And I was lucky that I had done enough homework to know a little bit about that. So what I did was I mixed suntan lotion with a UV inhibitor into the oil based ink. They're both oil based, and the suntan lotion did not affect the opacity of the ink, thank heaven. But I also, just to make sure I was covered, I did a full bleed cover of dead flat varnish on top of the bills after they were printed. And that cut out all of the UV reflection. And so it was amazing because I was scared to death of getting caught. I didn't want to go to prison. I didn't want the humiliation of my wife and kids. So I was laser focused. I'm trying to stay out of trouble at this point because I crossed that bridge.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah. People right now are probably thinking, how did people not notice this? But I did an episode with a brain scientist named David Eagleman. He told me that people just don't study currency, they assume it's real. Nobody who gets handed money assumes that the bill is fake. That's why they have checks like draw on it with a marker, put it under the UV light, and if those checks come up, you're already assuming the bill is real because you've seen 100 of those that week that are real. It would be so weird to find a fake one that you're expecting it to come up as real. So even if it glowed like a little bit, you'd just go, ah, whatever. As long as you're not looking at 10 bills, the same serial number with each vendor, and it's not completely obvious that it's fake in some other way, people just are not going to really notice this. I'M curious though, what did it feel like being rich overnight? Did it make you any happier? Did it alleviate your stress level? Or were you too stressed out about getting caught?

[Russ Swain]

Potentially, yeah, the stress level was really intense. It made me realize I'm becoming someone completely different than I used to be. And I had to keep asking myself, do I like this new version of myself? Because I remember referring to it as the ghost that was always there, taunting me, asking me, do you like this new version of yourself because you're becoming someone completely different. I used to be at least true hearted, tried to do the right thing and so forth. And now I realized I am completely different than the guy that my wife thought she was marrying, the guy that I thought I was. And I had to keep putting that ghost in the closet and that he was always there coming out of the shadows, taunting me, asking me, do you like this version of yourself? And the honest answer was, not very much. It was a trade. But I felt like I was trading part of my soul and I didn't like it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I do wonder though, you're printing all these bills, are there bad ones? Are there duds that come out or like, oh, that smeared because something happened or I touched that with my thumb and it wasn't dry yet. What do you do with those? I assume you got to inspect all these bills and make sure that they look good because that's how you get caught is you have a thumbprint on one of your bills or something.

[Russ Swain]

They have to be perfect. And so I went through and with an eagle eye everything that looked even remotely suspicious because you're printing these off by the hundreds and so it's okay. But then you're exactly right. What do you do with the bills that don't pass muster? And it happened that my in laws, my wife's parents had a wood burning stove. And I thought, great, I'll just take them over there because I didn't want to go out in the woods, have somebody go through the ashes and say this was a bunch of money or something, bank robbery. So I went over to my parents in law's home, shoved these all in their wood burning stove, lit a match, made sure that the fire was going and closed the little door. But I didn't understand because I'd never had a wood burning stove. There's little flues and things that you have to open up to let the oxygen come in so soon. The fire basically went out and they just smoldered.

[Jordan Harbinger]

At least you didn't burn the house down. That would have Been worse.

[Russ Swain]

Yeah. But anyway, that was one of the things later on in the book that led to the demise of my little scheme is when my in laws came home and they thought, what's that smell? It's the middle of the summer. Who would be messing around with our wood burning stove? And they opened it up and thought, my God, there's money in here.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Oh, no.

[Russ Swain]

Anyway, it was all charred beyond being usable, but they couldn't imagine what was going on.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, there's no really good way to explain yourself out of that one. You'd have to come up with a real whopper. No, it's fake money that I wanted to get rid of for absolutely no suspicious reason whatsoever. And don't call the police. Yeah, there's just no good way. So you eventually pay the loan shark back, right? Right, with the laundry. So how did that feel? That must have been at least a relief, because now you're not going to get kneecapped by some gangster, right?

[Russ Swain]

And I showed up at the little strip place that he always wanted to conduct his business. I had under my arm a cigar box that I had procured solely because it just fit these rows of hundred dollar bills. And his interest payment was in an envelope with his name on it. And I slid it across the table and he counted it out. And he says, okay, that's the interest. And what's with the cigar box? You know I don't smoke. I says, I didn't think you would want me walking around with this much cash. And I opened it up and he could see it was full of bills. And so I put the lid down and he just said to me, he says, you're all right, Swain. I could tell he gained a certain level of respect because he had heard through the grapevine that my big project had gone haywire. And he was wondering, how are you ever going to pay me back? And he thought, okay, is he just going to make interest payments for the rest of his life or how's this going to work? And anyway, I guess it gained a certain level of respect and confidence with him.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And then you stopped printing the money and lived happily ever after? No, that's not why we're here. How long did you print the money? Because you kept printing it after that, right?

[Russ Swain]

I kept printing, printing it. And there's a side of me that's very empathetic. And the fellow that I bought the press from was a great guy. And he was a horrible businessman, but a really decent guy. And he had some financial problems. He had sold me his press so he could get a job. But he wasn't making the money he was making. When he had his own business and he was in arrears on his home, he was afraid it was going to get repossessed. And I said, hey, look. I said, I might have something that'll help you. It helped me out of a jam. I explained to him, his wife said, no, there's no way in hell we could do that. But I guess they went home and discussed it and slept on it. Because the next day he called me and says, thanks for inviting me, and can you do it just so I can make enough money to pay off my house? And I says, yeah, let's do it. I said, let's just swear to each other, I don't know you, you don't know me. You go your way, I'll go my way, and we'll hope for a happy outcome. Instead of to some backwoodsy place like Idaho, he went to Las Vegas, where people know money and it's very sacred to them.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And they've seen all kinds of shady gangsters and mafia and criminals come through with fake bills and fake checks and fake everything.

[Russ Swain]

Yeah, exactly. And he wasn't a gambler. He didn't go to the casinos. He went to the little strip malls. He and his wife and she would be on his heels. He'd grab a pack of gum, she'd grab some chapstick, and they'd each pay with a 20. And this caught the attention of a security guard at the mall. He said, see that couple? They've gone to every store making little purchases. I'll bet they're kiting checks to cover gambling debts.

[Jordan Harbinger]

What is kiting checks like? Just writing bad checks? Is that what that means?

[Russ Swain]

Writing bad checks to get the money? And then you write a check for 50 bucks or whatever. So he was curious, and so he went into each one of the places and says, hey, that couple was in here. Did they write a check for their purchase? No, they gave me cash. And so he went on down through, and he thought, I recognize the behavior. It's abnormal behavior. This guy, he was kind of a simple guy, and he thought, worked so well last time. Let's just go do the same thing. And they went to the same place, and there's the security guard saying, there they are. What is going on? And it caught his attention. So now the curiosity was just eating him alive. He thought, what are they doing Buying the same little items? And so he said, could I buy that bill from you? And as he Went down, he's looking at him and bingo, he found duplicating serial numbers. And so he called the Secret Service and they came down and they said, could you recognize, says, hey, trust me, they'll be back again next weekend. They come down here every weekend. They do this, the same thing, the same place. I'll spot them, I'll let you know. And so the Secret Service just showed up the next weekend and grabbed them.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Wow. So at this point they rat you out immediately because they're scared, understandably. And they knock on your door eventually, I assume.

[Russ Swain]

Yeah. And he tried not to rat me out, but the Secret Service are so thorough. So anyway, they at least traced it back to me. I'm the guy who owns the print shop and I was out of town. I was still up in Idaho spending more money because I loved going to Idaho. And anyway, the Secret Service had interviewed my in laws and they said, you know what, this explains a lot because we found a bunch of burned up bills in our wood burning stove. At that point, I can't lie my way out of this. There isn't an alibi big enough. And so I had to just come clean. And I said, yeah, you've got the right guy. And the other fellow and his wife, I won't mention their names, they were accomplices, but I'm the guy that you'll want. So I at least gave myself up. It's time to just give myself up and go peaceably.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You too can do good deeds with your money by supporting the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Haya Health. Most kids vitamins are basically candy in disguise. They're packed with sugar. What if I told you there's a better option? Haya has zero sugar, no gummy junk, and is actually packed with good stuff. But the real question is, will kids actually eat it? Mind you, not only that, they were actually super excited about decorating their individual vitamin bottles with their included stickers. So now instead of me reminding them to take their vitamins, they remind me, which is a parenting win that I did not see coming. Chaia is made with 12 organic fruits and veggies and loaded with 15 essential vitamins and minerals. Stuff like vitamin D, B12, zinc, folate to help with immunity, energy focus and more. If your kid basically survives on buttered macaroni and air, this'll help fill in the gaps. It's also non GMO vegan, free of all the usual stuff. No dairy, no nuts, no gelatin and once you get the first bottle they send you eco friendly refills Every month. We've worked out a special deal with Haya for their best selling children's vitamin. Receive 50% off your first order. To claim this deal you must go to hyahealth.com Jordan this deal is not available on their regular website. Go to H I Y A H E a l t h.com jordan and get your kids the full body nourishment they need to grow into healthy adults. I've got Homes.com is a sponsor for this episode. Homes.com knows when it comes to home shopping, it's never just about the house or the condo. It's about the homes. And what makes a home is more than just the house or property. It's the location. It's the neighborhood. If you got kids, it's also schools, nearby, parks, transportation options. That's why homes.com goes above and beyond to bring home shoppers the in depth information they need to find the right home. It's so hard not to say home every single time. And when I say in depth information, I'm talking deep. Each listing features comprehensive information about the neighborhood, complete with a video guide. They also have details about local schools with test scores, state rankings, student teacher ratio. They even have an agent directory with the sales history of each agent. So when it comes to finding a home, not just a house, this is everything you need to know all in1place.homes.com We've done your homework. This episode is also sponsored by Progressive Fiscally responsible financial geniuses. Monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds because Progressive offers discounts for paying in full, owning a home and more. Plus, you can count on their usual great customer service to help you when you need it. So your dollar goes a long way. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save on car insurance, Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations. If you like this episode of the show, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do, which is take a moment and support the amazing sponsors who make this show possible. You can always dig up codes using the AI chatbot on the website, but they should all be listed and Clickable [e-mail] deals and if you can't remember the name of a sponsor, you can't find the code. You're not sure if it ever existed. Please do email us jordanordanharbinger.com. we are happy to surface that for you. It is that important that you support those who support the show. Now, for the rest of my conversation with Russ Swain, I assume that they went, yeah, where's the international organized crime syndicate that's helping you do this? Because it's pretty impressive that you printed all these bills. They're of this quality. They pass the UV test. They got the diamond dust in them. Just doesn't seem like a thing you do in your garage or your print shop.

[Russ Swain]

Yeah, these weren't printed by your uncle in the basement. What was going on here? And the Secret Serviceman that was in charge, his name was Roger Rodak, a really wonderful gentleman, also a Mormon. And I apologize to him for being such a failure in representing the faith that we both adhered to. But he was intrigued by it all. And he asked me a hundred questions, 50 of which he knew the answer to. And he pulled me aside. He says, I gotta tell you, he says, under different circumstances, you and I would be very good friends. He says, one thing I respect. You never lied to me. He says, I asked you so many questions. And I said, well, you know what? At this point, what would be the point in lying to you? I just. I'm guilty. And he says, but I respected that you didn't lie. And so, anyway, he kind of understood. Okay, here's a guy, he's a creative guy. His back was against the wall. He did something thinking way outside the box, and I understand it. And so we became actually very amicable together. Later, he came to my aid in a big way when I faced a federal judge.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Can't imagine it would be so tempting to whitewash your participation in something like this. But you're right. There's no alibi big enough. And the Secret Service is very thorough. You mentioned they found thumbprints on the edges of the bills that you tried to burn because they went through the ash in the garbage and things like that with tweezers, which must have been a really long day or week for that agent.

[Russ Swain]

Tedious for those guys.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Gosh, can you imagine?

[Russ Swain]

And they said, I got a corner of a bill, and this bill was only printed on one side because you scrapped it. And he says, it has your thumbprint on it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Oh, my God. So incriminating.

[Russ Swain]

It was incriminating, and it was almost cathartic to be able to just confess and say, yeah, it's over, but you've got the guy, and what you're going to do with me, God only knows.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Do you know how much counterfeit US currency is in circulation. Do you have any idea? I can imagine it's a lot.

[Russ Swain]

I would bet you're right. And I have no idea what those figures would be, but it does beg the question, doesn't it? I was just focused on trying to get rid of my stash, but I have no idea how widespread that is.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You know what? I'll look it up right now. Okay. In the United States, the U.S. department of treasury estimates that 70 to 200 million in counterfeit bills are in circulation at any given time. That is roughly one counterfeit bill for every 10,000 genuine bills. I don't know if that's more than I thought or less than I thought. I feel like that's less than I thought. 70 million. That doesn't seem like that much somehow, but I guess it is at the end of the day.

[Russ Swain]

Yeah, nationally, but that's still a lot of cash floating around that we probably pass it on our own selves.

[Jordan Harbinger]

This is international too, because remember, North Korea's making these, Iran was or is making these. So that's probably the bulk of it, but still. Wow, that's crazy. Did you do any good deeds with the fake cash? You're a good person, right? So it wouldn't just be, oh, I'm playing carnival games and buying tampons. I mean, it would just be so tempting to do nice things with it. I feel like if you've got an unlimited money glitch, one of the most fun things you could do would be to help other people with it.

[Russ Swain]

That is so perceptive of you. And I remember one day I was walking around a little mall in Idaho and there was a Hispanic lady and she had her little three year old daughter with her while she was cleaning windows of these little shops. And I thought, that poor lady, she's out here busting her back, can't afford a babysitter. And so I remember at the time throwing one of the bills down at her feet and thinking that she'd see it, but she was so focused on making sure the streaks were out of the windows. And I said, pardon me, ma'am, I says, per tone mi. And I pointed to her and I said, you dropped that. And she said, she looked at it, she says, no, no es mio. And I thought, come on, go with it. I said, no, I'm sure it's yours. You stood on it, you must have dropped it, so please pick it up, it's yours. And she was amazingly grateful that somehow manna from heaven had just fallen to bless her life. A little bit. An extra 20 bucks. But you do you look around for ways that you can help somebody? Just a beggar on the street, anybody. Hey, 20 bucks will make a big difference in your day. And there was a great deal of joy in that. That's very perceptive.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Tell me about the Mexican cab driver. This is a fun use of funds as well.

[Russ Swain]

Oh, yeah. It ended up that Tommy the Shark and I, after I paid him off, we stayed in touch. And I saw a different side of him that I'd seen. Not just the gruff, menacing guy, but I saw the human side. And he and I became relatively close. He called me one day. He says, russ, I've got some health problems, and I don't know how serious it is, but I want to go get away. I want to go to Mazatlan. You speak pretty good Spanish. Let you and I go to Mazatlan together? And I said, sure, Tommy, I'd love to. I had to run it past my wife and make sure that she was. I said, hey. I said, because I can speak Spanish pretty well. Would you mind if I had this experience? And she says, hey, you've worked hard. She says, no, go ahead.

[Jordan Harbinger]

This is before your arrest, by the way, for people who are like, wait.

[Russ Swain]

A minute, this is before the arrest. And I thought I could take a few of these bills and maybe unload them in Mexico. Sure, Tommy, let's go. And Tommy and I have different tastes. I like to explore the cultural nuances. And I didn't want to go to bars. I still didn't drink. I didn't do any of that. So I feigned a headache. We went to a little bar, and I says, hey, do you mind if I leave you here and let you enjoy yourself? But I says, I'm just going back to the hotel because what I wanted to do, I wanted to get out. I wanted to mingle with people, see how well I could work the Spanish. And it's those little encapsulated relationships that you remember where you strike up a friendship with someone. So I jumped in the first cab that I came to, and it was a young guy, his name was Marco, and struck up a conversation. Marco, how you doing? How long you been doing this? You married? You got a family? Yeah, yeah, I'm married. I says, you got any kids? He says, I'm expecting one. A little baron, a boy child. I says, good for you. I says, when's he due? He says, tonight, actually. I said, tonight. I says, what are you doing here? He says, she's at the hospital. But her parents are there. I says, marco, I said, you know what? I said, you're going to have an empty ring finger thinking the way you're thinking right now. This is the biggest moment of life so far, seeing you firstborn be born. I said, how much do you make? He says, I have to work. I can't afford to take a night off work. I says, you have to. How much do you make in a night? And he said, $30. I says, okay, look, here's your 30 bucks. You're covered. I thought it's the least I can do to help a young guy out so he can be there to see his firstborn be born, to be with his wife in that special moment. And he says, no, that's not going to cover it. Because he says, I have to make $200 in a night. And I thought, all right, so maybe some of these fake twenties, at least six of them, would help, because I just. My heart went out to this guy. I says, okay, now call your boss, do whatever you got to do if you have to, feign sickness or something, but drive me to the hospital. Drive me to where your wife is giving birth and pray to God you're not late. And he says, really? I says, yeah. So he says, this is nice of you. So he says, what are you going to do? I says, I'll just get another cab. I'm fine. He says, look, you talked a lot of sense into me. Come up and meet my wife. And I thought, all right, now this is the kind of cultural experience you want. You would have done the same thing, Jordan. And I says, I would love to meet your wife.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So we go up the stairs while she's in labor. Hi, who's this stranger in the room? No, thank you. That's so funny.

[Russ Swain]

But as we were walking down the hall, her eyes lit up because she was in the bed. She could see us coming because the door was open. And she says, marco, somehow I knew you would come. And her parents were there looking very grimly at him, saying, it's a damn good thing you came. And so he turned around and very silently mouthed to me the word gracias. And I just nodded. And I said, so I went in, I shook hands with the in laws, met the lovely wife. And I said, you know what? I'm just a friend of Marco's. I wanted to make sure that he could juggle everything around and help him so that he'd be here on this special night. Anyway, it made a big difference. And so he says, look, let me walk My American friend to the door here. And so we walked down the hall, and he said, hey. He says, you made such a huge impression. I had Hispanic friends back in Utah. They couldn't say the name Russ very well, so they called me Rocks. It was easy to say. Anyway, I had shared that with him, and he says, I like that. He says, I want you to know I'm going to nickname my little son the little rock after an American friend who helped me tonight to usher him into the world. And it was a big deal. It was fun. It was the. Exactly the kind of flavor that I was looking for, and I never forgot it. And he probably doesn't either.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That must have been the best and most fun use of the money, other than getting out of getting kneecapped by a gangster, right? Wow. So, okay, Secret service catches up to you, you get arrested. The agent is impressed that you didn't lie to him, but that's not getting you out of trouble entirely. Surely there's fallout from the family, too. Like, your wife must have been. I don't even know if angry is quite gonna cut it here. She must have just been shocked and.

[Russ Swain]

Horrified, devastated, because now there's a big breach of trust. Who are you? Yeah, you told me business was going great. You told me everything was fine. Nothing is fine. Nothing in our life is fine right now. And I don't even know who you are. And once the trust is gone, I could just see the love drain out of her eyes. I knew there was no fixing that. But she stayed with me to get me through all of the courts and everything. I mean, what else could we do? I hired a cheap attorney, and he wasn't great. He was anything but. He didn't put his heart and soul into this. But strangely enough, Roger Rodak, the secret serviceman, was there at the courthouse that day that I had to go before the judge. And the prosecuting attorney did a very convincing job. He said, the quality of these bills are a testament to his criminal intent to defraud the government, to defraud the American people. He would have done this. He would have expanded on it. He was lucky he was caught, but he needs to be punished to the full extent of the law. And as he's giving his argument of how much criminal intent there was, Roger Rodak, the secret service man, raised his hand, and he says, I object to this, your honor. And he said, you're objecting to the prosecution? He says, yes, I am. He says, but you're on our team. You're on the other side he says, yes. He says what he's saying is that this proves criminal intent. He says, I argue that it proves creative intent. There is a big difference. And that's why I said, the essence of creativity and criminality is it's all based on getting away from certainty. And so anyway, he said, it shows creative intent. And he says, I've spent at least a hundred hours interrogating, interviewing, questioning this gentleman. And the judge says, well, you're the one who drug him into my courtroom. And he said, yeah. He says, I've spent 20 years chasing bad guys. You get a sense of who's a good guy and who's just somebody who's lost his way. And he says, I say that this guy isn't a threat. And he says, what if you gave him a biblical seven years probation? And the judge says, you know what? You know him better than I do. You know him better than the prosecutor. He says, that's fine with me. And he said, seven years probation with the understanding that you have to pay back the government for all of the bills that you spent. And I said, okay, that'll keep me out of jail, of course. And I said, but you're going to have to put me on a payment program because now things upside down again. And he says, the Secret Service people are very adept at gathering up the bills. They know where to look. You have to buy them back from them as they gather up these bills. And I said, okay, so far, I haven't had to buy any of them back yet. So after 40 years, I doubt that there's any in existence. So that's kind of nice.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I mean, surely they detected them and they just destroyed them like they do with other counterfeit bills. They documented it and destroyed it, and it didn't make it back to whatever probation officer's desk that you were dealing with. You got really stinking lucky.

[Russ Swain]

I did indeed. There must have been some kind of angel looking out for me, for which I'm grateful.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But the worst punishment was that I assumed the relationship with your wife deteriorated as a result.

[Russ Swain]

Correct. And then she divorced me, which was the right thing to do.

[Jordan Harbinger]

What about your kids? How old were they? How do you explain to them what happened?

[Russ Swain]

Yeah, at the time they were like 12, 13. And it was really hard. So we tried to soften the blow as best we could, but we didn't immediately separate. But they understood. And the nice thing, my ex wife handled it so beautifully. She remained amicable, she remained respectful. We stayed in touch. And even after we were divorced, we still Considered ourselves a family. We'd been divorced for some time, and she met a wonderful human being who crazily enough later became my best friend. And it really turned out beautifully because he's taken such good care of her and insisted that I be back as an integral part of the family circle. He said the family circle just expanded the circle of family and friends. And they both are wonderful friends now. And I think it worked out exactly the way that the heavens intended it to be. He's a great best friend, a better companion to my former wife than I could have been. My kids and grandkids love him, and they know of my affection for him. And so they feel free to love him because there's not a competition that way, which is really a beautiful way to live your life. And so I'm grateful for that.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And you suckered him into driving you to studio today, which is really nice.

[Russ Swain]

Right. And I'm gonna sucker him into buying me some lunch because I took my wallet.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, there's a joke in there somewhere about Pam $20 bill, but I'm not quite quick enough to come up with it. Man, it's such an interesting story. And you got so lucky. I just can't get over it. Although I'm curious. You said, years later, this cop walks in and maybe tests you. Tell us about this. I'm still trying to figure this one out.

[Russ Swain]

Yeah, that was crazy. I still had the Secret Service people. After they released me, I was still free to go back to my design studio. And I was working, and one day a gentleman walked in. He introduced himself and he said, I have followed your case so closely. And he said, the problem you had, he said, I understand that these bills were impeccable and you had the wrong partner. You didn't have a partner. He says, I'm a cop from Vegas. And that's where I found out and learned about this stuff. And he said, but sometimes our personalities are. You work both sides of that fence. And he says, I think I could be a very good partner if you'll do it again. Show me how you did it. You've got the printing presses, you've got everything. Let's do it again. And I said, you know what? I went through the most stressful time of my entire life. I never want to relive it. I want to forget it. And I'm going to show you the door. I didn't bite. I never knew if he was a plant or if he was real. I'll never know. But I'm glad that I wasn't tempted.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah. Probably walked out and got into that Secret Service agent's car and went, oh, I think you made the right decision. He told me to get lost.

[Russ Swain]

Yeah, maybe so. I hope that was the case.

[Jordan Harbinger]

How long after the trial was this? Was it years later? Months later?

[Russ Swain]

This was a couple of months later.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Okay.

[Russ Swain]

Wow. And I was back with my nose to the grindstone, and I was scrambling to try to salvage my business, my marriage, whatever I could do.

[Jordan Harbinger]

What about the church? Did they find out about this? And what happens with the church when stuff like this happens?

[Russ Swain]

Yeah. Their rules are you have to obey the laws of the land, and I wasn't obeying the tenets of the church. And so they held their own court, and I was excommunicated, disenfranchised from the church. And so I stayed away and stayed out of it because I was an embarrassment to them. But then eventually wanted to regain some church activity. And I'm more private about my church affiliation now than I ever was, probably for that reason. But anyway, they eventually, in time, let me rejoin the ranks, and so all is well.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's interesting. So you were on probation from church, too?

[Russ Swain]

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And they make sure that you've learned your lesson and that you're not going to go back, because they can't have that besmirching their reputation. And rightfully so. I wouldn't want to. And like I say, I'm very private about my church involvement and so forth, much more than I ever was. But I'm grateful that I never did completely shed my Mormon skin.

[Jordan Harbinger]

As we wrap here, I'm very curious. It sounds like your old principal gave you a chance to forge one last item.

[Russ Swain]

Yes. I'm so glad you asked that question. Years later, this was 25 years after I'd graduated from high school. A knock came to the door. I opened the door. It was my old high school principal. I was shocked. I said, principal Snow. And he looked at me and he said, rusty Swain. That was what they called me, my friends, back in the day. I said, am I still in trouble? He says, rusty, you have never, in my book, been out of trouble. He says, you see these few gray hairs that are remaining? You put the gray in him with all that mischief you got into back in high school. But I brought you some good news, Rusty. I says, what is that? He says, I brought you an opportunity to atone for all that mischief. I said, please come in. Have a seat. Tell me how I can do that. And together, we concocted a Little scheme that he needed a counterfeiter for he had been before. He was principal. He was the coach at the new Ogden High School. Very classy high school in Ogden, Utah. First million dollar high school ever built on this side of the Mississippi River. And it was elegant in its art deco architecture. He was in college, state champion, quarterback for the football team. And he was offered this job to be the head coach at the new Ogden High School. And he instigated a rivalry between Ogden High School and another high school. It was called Weber High. And as a trophy, he had found this earthen jug, had a sign painter doll it up and create the artistry on it that said the Little Brown Jug champion. And that was the trophy that was passed each year to the winner. And he said, after I retired, because there were fights breaking out in school, we canceled that competition. And I always wondered what happened to my trophy. And so nobody seemed to know where it went. And so I was asking former students, former teachers, anybody know where that trophy went? And anyway, finally a janitor came to him and said, I think it's in a box in the basement storage room of the Weber County Library. So he went, he asked for permission to go through all these boxes. It was like looking for the Holy Grail. One day he found it, and tears welled up in his eyes. He was emotional about it. This was a part of my history. I want this to be permanently displayed in the Ogden High School trophy case. And no sooner had it been displayed there, given a place of honor. But the coach at Weaver High said, I think that belongs in our trophy case because we won more games than you guys did. He was really offended at that because it was his creation. It was a tribute to his, you know, legacy. And so he said, rusty, he says, I gotta give him something. So here's the trophy, and I want you to make one identical. And I said, and I'm forgiven? He says, you're forgiven. And it was. We had the most fun, and we bonded over this fun, little mischievous prank to pull on the coach at Weber High School. And he gave it to him with, and said, hey, give it a place of respect. Whereas the real trophy, he built a special case for it. And it's in the teacher's lounge where only the administration can enjoy it and see it. But it's in its proper place at Ogden High School. And I promised I wouldn't tell that, divulge that to anybody as long as he walked the earth. And he passed away a few years later. And so now I can talk about it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's really funny. So somewhere, if Weaver High School is even still called Weaver High School and is still around, there's a jug there that everybody thinks, oh, it's from us winning all those championships against Ogden and it's just something you made in your garage. Yep, that's exactly right.

[Russ Swain]

People have since asked me, were you tempted to make two and keep the real one? And I said, no, I wasn't going to do that.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It's not valuable enough to do. And also, this was you finally getting into the good graces of that principal who had one out for you for decades. That's so funny.

[Russ Swain]

And becoming very good friends through it all. Yeah, it was great.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Russ Swain, thank you so much. You're a great storyteller. One of the things I love about this is when you talk to a mafia guy or a criminal, right, they have this little edge to them that they got that little kind of criminal edge. You just don't have that. You've got the Mormon guy thing going on where I made a $20 bill, I painted a potion stamp, and then the Secret Service arrested me. And they found it's just the way you tell the stories is so funny because it's so unassuming. And I think that might be one of the reasons you got away with it for so long is everybody went, he is not counterfeiter. Next.

[Russ Swain]

That's very kind of you. I appreciate that. And I have to say, you're a very imaginative question asker. You're very good at the art of interrogation, I guess you would say.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, thanks. I guess in another life, I would have been a Secret Service agent arresting you, no doubt.

[Russ Swain]

No doubt. Thank you so much. It's been a joy.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You're about to hear a preview of the Jordan Harbinger show With a skilled art forger who made millions selling his fakes.

[Russ Swain]

I was a storehouse of knowledge of how to create an illusion, present it to a experienced expert, and bring him to the inevitable conclusion that the painting is genuine. We flooded the market with my paintings, and eventually the FBI were led to my door. They uncovered a mountain of evidence against.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Me, but they never actually got you. Why did it go away? Why did you never get indicted? And how are we having this conversation?

[Russ Swain]

I guess that's the greatest story of all.

[Jordan Harbinger]

To hear details of how Ken Perenni evaded the scrutiny of everyone from the mafia to the FBI and lived to tell the tale, check out episode 282 of the Jordan Harbinger show. Some of the way he solved problems with his counterfeit currency. It really reminded me of episode 282 with Ken Parenni. A lot of creative problem solving goes into counterfeiting and forging. Things like using old nails from flea market art in his forgeries so they'd look old to the naked eye. And on X ray machines, taking the varnish off of an old painting and putting it on the forgery, that kind of stuff. Really, these guys all have this in common. They have to solve these really unique problems. Also, Russ got some early advice for his art career, namely steal with both hands. That's what he was told about art. And you know, there's a book, Steal like an Artist. I think he might have taken that advice a smidge too literally. But you know, you be the judge, man. Though the fallout from his deeds. The kids couldn't play at other people's homes. That would hurt a lot. Not as bad as prison, maybe not as bad as losing your wife, but it sure would sting. I think that's really having to look your kids in the eye and tell them what you did and see their disappointment. That one would really cut to the heart. All things Russ Swain will be in the show [e-mail], advertisers, deals, discount codes, ways to support the show. [e-mail] deals Please consider supporting those who support the show. Our Newsletter Wee bit wiser. Also quite fun and entertaining. Very practical. Something that will have an immediate impact on your decisions and your psychology and your relationships. In under two minutes. We send it out on most Wednesdays. If you haven't signed up yet, I invite you to come check it out. It's a great companion to the show. Jordanharbinger.com news is where you can find it. Don't forget about six minute networking as well. Over at sixminutenetworking.com I'm ordanharbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn in this show. It's created in association with podcast one. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for the show is you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting. The greatest compliment you can give us is to share the show with those you care about. If you know somebody who loves a good forgery or counterfeiting story, definitely share this episode with them. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn, and we'll see you next time.