Cologne, Germany - A German graphic artist, 66, was sent to jail Thursday for six years for printing huge numbers of his very own, real-looking US dollars. Police said that the 16.5 million dollars' face value of the counterfeits made it the second biggest greenback forgery operation in world history.
The man, who has a previous forgery conviction, was mockingly known in the city of Cologne as "Andy Warhol" because his art copied the late US artist of that name.
The accused compromised himself by sending garbage bags of shredded surplus notes to the town dump, where a surprised worker discovered them. Police even found his name and address inside one bag.
He was then caught in a police sting as he tried to sell a woman detective 300,000 fake dollars for 21,000 real ones. An accomplice, 69, who stored some of the fakes was jailed for three years by the Cologne court.
Experts told the court that the fakes were quite professional.
