{"id":335,"date":"2011-07-07T12:01:06","date_gmt":"2011-07-07T19:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/?p=335"},"modified":"2025-12-14T13:26:32","modified_gmt":"2025-12-14T21:26:32","slug":"backblaze-finds-1-million-counterfeit-cash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/backblaze-finds-1-million-counterfeit-cash\/","title":{"rendered":"Backblaze Finds $1 Million Counterfeit Cash"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/blog-bring-down-mafia.jpg\" alt=\"Argentinian mafia\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"bzdropcap\">No, I&#8217;m not kidding.<\/p>\n<p>Just over a month ago we launched <a href=\"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/cloud-backup\/features\/find-my-computer\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Locate My Computer<\/a>, a free feature of our online <a href=\"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/cloud-storage\/solutions\/backup-and-archive\">backup service<\/a>, to find your computer if it is lost or stolen. Since then a number of people have recovered their computers.<\/p>\n<p>However, one of our customers (let&#8217;s call him &#8220;Joe&#8221; as he requested anonymity since those who stole his laptop are connected to the mafia) shared an incredible story about what happened when the police recovered his laptop:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>When they searched the apartment where my macbook was located they also found one million dollars in counterfeit bills. The story was all over the news here in Buenos Aires. Unfortunately for your company, the police and press kept referring to Backblaze as a GPS locator. As many times as I told the police the program I was using, they didn&#8217;t totally understand what it was, and thought it was a GPS chip. Anyway, I just wanted to let you guys know the good news, and thanks to Backblaze I got my stolen computer back, plus a counterfeiting ring was busted!!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>While this story hasn&#8217;t been covered in the U.S., Joe shared some of the coverage it received in Argentina. The articles are all in Spanish, but the highlights are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>$1 million in counterfeit bills<\/li>\n<li>2,450 sheets containing about 10,000 bills<\/li>\n<li>Mostly $100 denominations<\/li>\n<li>One person arrested; six people detained<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Mac and the counterfeit cash were found at Calle Carlos Calvo 1500, San Cristobal:<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps?q=Calle+Carlos+Calvo+1500,+San+Cristobal,+argentina&amp;hl=en&amp;ll=-34.619956,-58.387318&amp;spn=0.005633,0.00339&amp;sll=-34.724052,-58.20813&amp;sspn=1.440229,0.86792&amp;t=h&amp;z=18\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/map-of-mafia-stolen-computer.jpg\" alt=\"Map of counterfeit cash location\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Clarin, the largest Argentinian paper, writes &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.clarin.com\/policiales\/Cae-banda-extranjeros-dolares-falsificados_0_501550044.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">band of foreigners brought down with fake $1,000,000<\/a>&#8221; (<a href=\"http:\/\/translate.google.com\/translate?hl=en&amp;sl=auto&amp;tl=en&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.clarin.com%2Fpoliciales%2FCae-banda-extranjeros-dolares-falsificados_0_501550044.html\">Google Translate version.<\/a>) Other Argentinian sites including Infobae, Yahoo News, and El Argentino also covered this discovery.<\/p>\n<p>Joe says, &#8220;<strong>Thanks again for the service. Best $5 a month I&#8217;ve spent.<\/strong>&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Thanks for sharing the story, Joe. The Argentinian police should thank you, as well!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No, I&#8217;m not kidding. Just over a month ago we launched Locate My Computer, a free feature of our online backup service, to find your computer if it is lost or stolen. Since then a number of people have recovered their computers. However, one of our customers (let&#8217;s call him &#8220;Joe&#8221; as he requested anonymity&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/backblaze-finds-1-million-counterfeit-cash\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Backblaze Finds $1 Million Counterfeit Cash<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90600,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[131,9,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-backblaze-bits","category-customer-stories","category-locate-my-computer","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>A Customer Story: How Backblaze Helped Find $1 Million in Counterfeit Cash<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"No, I&#039;m not kidding. Just over a month ago we launched Locate My Computer, a free feature of our online backup service, to find your computer if it is\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/backblaze-finds-1-million-counterfeit-cash\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Customer Story: How Backblaze Helped Find $1 Million in Counterfeit Cash\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"No, I&#039;m not kidding. Just over a month ago we launched Locate My Computer, a free feature of our online backup service, to find your computer if it is\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/backblaze-finds-1-million-counterfeit-cash\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage &amp; Cloud Backup\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/backblaze\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-07-07T19:01:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-12-14T21:26:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/blog-bring-down-mafia.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Gleb Budman\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@backblaze\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@backblaze\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Gleb Budman\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A Customer Story: How Backblaze Helped Find $1 Million in Counterfeit Cash","description":"No, I'm not kidding. 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Gleb has served as a member of our board of directors since 2009 and as chairperson since January 2021. Prior to Backblaze, Gleb was the senior director of product management at SonicWall and the vice president of products at MailFrontier, which was acquired by SonicWall. Before that, he served in a senior position at Kendara, which was acquired by Excite@Home, and previously founded and successfully exited two other startup companies.","url":"https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/blog\/author\/gleb\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/blog-bring-down-mafia.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}