High-denomination banknotes, especially the U.S. $100 bill, are the international currency of crime, according to investigative journalist Oliver Bullough. Criminals, including drug and people smugglers, wildlife traffickers, and kleptocrats, prefer these large bills because they allow them to conduct transactions without bank compliance officers flagging suspicious activity to authorities. The anonymity and lack of transaction records associated with cash, along with the ease of transporting large sums across borders, make $100 bills a preferred form of payment for illicit activities. Bullough argues that by making it easy for criminals to obtain these banknotes, Western governments inadvertently make crime more profitable.
Economists and researchers have also noted a significant surge in the circulation of $100 bills. As of March 2026, the value of U.S. banknotes in circulation was close to $2.4 trillion, up from $758 billion in 2005. The total value of all dollar bills in circulation hit a new record high of $2.345 trillion in April 2024, nearly doubling every decade. This rise in $100 bills was three times higher than the increase in smaller bills, suggesting they are primarily used as a store of value. Nicholas Colas, co-founder of DataTrek Research, who has tracked this trend for a decade, noted that the demand for high-denomination bills as a store of value far exceeds their transactional demand.
A substantial portion of these high-denomination bills circulates outside the U.S. A 2018 Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago research paper estimated that 60% of all U.S. bills and almost 80% of all $100 bills are held abroad, a significant increase from 15% to 30% around 1980. This overseas demand is partly driven by political and economic instability. While some of the increase is attributed to people hoarding cash as a store of value, similar to the interest in cryptocurrencies, it also enables corruption and tax evasion. Experts like Colas point out that the Federal Reserve and Treasury are not incentivized to reduce production because they profit from printing and selling these bills offshore, which also reinforces the U.S. dollar's reserve currency status.
Money laundering is a critical support mechanism for criminal economies. Bullough emphasizes that if it were harder for criminals to launder their proceeds, there would be significantly less incentive and profitability in committing crimes. He estimates that hundreds of billions of dollars are laundered annually, fueling various illicit activities from drug trafficking to terrorism. Despite huge investments in surveillance systems, less than 1% of illicit financial flows are seized. Some, like former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, have advocated for abolishing $100 bills to curb international crime, suggesting that a moratorium on printing new high-denomination notes would make the world better with minimal impact on legitimate commerce.
