The World's Greatest Counterfeiter

 

 

Start 2018 with a bang by sharing lunch with Litchfield-Morris Rotarians and hearing a most unique and exciting guest speaker – Louis “The Coin” Colavecchio, without question the world’s greatest counterfeiter.

 

The event is being held at the Forman School dining facility, 12 Norfolk Rd., Litchfield on Thursday, March 15 from 12N – 1:30 pm.  There is no charge, but reservations are requested since space is limited.

 

To make a reservation, for directions and additional information, please contact Andy Thibault (860.690.0211 / tntcomm82@cs.com or Chuck Conn (860.806.1550 / cbcthree@aol.com).

 

“I’m always happy to visit Connecticut to see old friends and make new ones,” Colavecchio said.  “I also appreciate the work of Rotary Club members who serve others all year round.  I’m just an average, hard-working guy with tenacity.  Unlike many people, if I have a goal I never quit.  Of course it helps if your goal is legal.”

 

Colavecchio will be introduced by retired Connecticut State Police Detective Sergeant Jerry Longo, who arrested him.  “Louis came up with a brilliant plan.  We (the cops) did, too.  I do not condone his criminal behavior, but I understand it.  He was very creative, an artist.  I assisted in some small way with him going to jail, and he served his time.  After spending time together after the case closed, we have developed a friendship.  That’s okay with me.  I am no longer a trooper, having retired in 2003.  He’s retired, too, right?”

 

Longo is now a senior investigator for a major casino.  Longo wrote the introduction for Colavecchio’s book, “You Thought It Was More”, a profane and raucously funny memoir.

 

Louis The Coin’s enterprise has been described by the U.S. Secret Service as the largest coin counterfeiting case in the department’s history.  Colavecchio, who created mass quantities of undetectable slot machine tokens, writes with commanding vigor about his wild adventures throughout the U.S. and Europe.  His talents as a jeweler, manufacturer and man of romance are part of the historical record.  It might be an understatement to say Colavecchio changed the face of casino gambling forever.  Casinos, for example, no longer use slot machine tokens.

 

Ride with Louis The Coin at 160 mph in his Lamborghini making score after score.  From Providence to Atlantic City and Vegas to Rome, Milan, Florence and Geneva, he’s the genuine article.

 

“What?  You thought it was more?”  This saying was code for being affiliated with the Providence Office, a moniker for the operations of mob boss Raymond Patriarca.  Fear not, Colavecchio was a lover, not a fighter  --  and not a made man.  Rather, he was known as talent in crime circles and as a hero in Providence because The Coin did not rat out any of his friends.

 

Louis The Coin began a life of entrepreneurial adventure as a youngster.  Along the way he got to know many characters on all sides of the law, throughout the United States and Europe.  His father had arrived in Providence from Italy in 1903, and as an established businessman Benedict Colavecchio and his wife, Theorora, encouraged young Louis to gain an education.  While working fulltime, he earned a degree in business administration from Providence College.

 

Colavecchio was such a great counterfeiter that after he spent more than two years in federal prison for his handiwork, he was paid $18,000 by the Treasury Department to explain why his manufacturing dies outlast those at the U.S. Mint.

 

Colavecchio’s counterfeiting prowess has been featured on The History Channel and the BBC (British Broadcasting Company).  Who knew metallurgy could be riveting?  Novelist Pam Lewis asked that question in a book jacket quote.  Join the Rotary Club for lunch on January 4 and find out.