Bureau of Engraving and Printing was stolen by a criminal, with possible links to al-Qaeda, and the plate was likely used to produce the counterfeit bills. Operation Gait $100 bills Bills forged by Anatasios Arnaouti in the UK (2005). "Federal Reserve Bonds" In recent years, metal boxes of fraudulent Federal Reserve Notes in astronomically high denominations (often in $100 million, $500 million, or $1 billion) and often with coupons attached have turned up in various Eastern countries such as the Philippines or Malaysia. In many cases, the notes are claimed to be part of a lost trove of secretly issued Federal Reserve Notes, and are special or not known to the public due to secrecy. Also, the bonds are sometimes treated to make them look old by getting them wet and moldy. However, the Federal Reserve has never issued notes in such denominations, and has issued warnings against them on its website. Additionally, there are several errors in the bonds as well as the metal boxes, many of them anachronistic. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York writes that The Federal Reserve is aware of several scams involving high denomination Federal Reserve notes and bonds, often in denominations of 100 million or 500 million dollars, dating back to the 1930s, usually 1934. In each of these schemes, fraudulent instruments are claimed to be part of a long-lost supply of recently discovered Federal Reserve notes or bonds. Fraudsters often falsely claim that the purported Federal Reserve notes or bonds that they hold are somehow very special and are not known to the public because they are so secret. Fraudsters have attempted to sell these worthless instruments, or to redeem or exchange them at banks and other financial institutions, or to secure loans or obtain lines of credit using the fictitious instruments as collateral. There have been several instances where people have used the fraudulent notes as legitimate currency, often resulting in arrest. In March 2006, agents from ICE and the Secret Service seized 250 notes, each bearing a denomination of $1,000,000,000 (one billion dollars) from a West Hollywood apartment. The suspect had previously been arrested on federal charges for attempting to smuggle more than $37,000 in currency into the U.S. following a trip to South Korea in 2002. Much of the artwork on the notes was duplicated from the real $1000 bill, including the portrait of Grover Cleveland. Another incident involving