Counterfeiting declined during World War II, and the previous yearly average of $1 million in counterfeit notes fell close to $50,000. However, counterfeit stamps for war rationing became a prevalent fraudulent activity. And due to the large amount of Government checks being issued each day, the thefts and forgeries of Government checks and war bonds rose significantly.

When the Allies marched into Germany, they discovered a great international counterfeit threat. In Zipf, Austria, American soldiers discovered a huge plant and captured close to $100 million in counterfeit British notes. No trace of American money was found; however, it is believed that some backs of American currency had been made during the Nazi efforts. Allied forces found that Nazi concentration camp prisoners had been forced to print the bogus British and American bills. At the end of the war, a former employee of the U.S. Secret Service, then Lt. Col. George J. McNally, and Scotland Yard’s Inspector Reeves pieced together the Nazi’s counterfeit story of how the concentration camp inmates produced the bogus bills.