Security Lax for New $100 Bills at Printing Plants
About 54.4 million new $100 bills and 4 million uncut sheets of notes had “inadequate security” at a Bureau of Engraving and Printing plant in Washington, according to an inspector with the Treasury Department. The audit also criticized security at the bureau’s Fort Worth, Texas, facility.
The finished bills were “wrapped in protective plastic, but were not stored in a locked security cage,” said a Bloomberg report. As of January 2011, some notes had been stored in the production area for more than nine months even though finished notes usually “are moved to a secure, limited-access vault shortly after production.”