START THE NEW YEAR WITH A BANG AT LITCHFIELD-MORRIS ROTARY: Guest Speaker Louis 'The Coin' Colavecchio, World's Greatest Counterfeiter, Jan. 4, 2018

Event Is Open to the Public [Rotary members and guests] 12 Noon, Forman School, 12 Norfolk Road, Litchfield, CT

RESERVATIONS REQUESTED / Space Limited: contact Chuck Conn, 860-806-1550 / cbcthree@aol.com or Andy Thibault, 860-690-0211 / tntcomm82@cs.com.

Litchfield-Morris Rotary website

OFFICIAL
ROTARY
ANNOUNCEMENT


LITCHFIELD, CT -- Louis 'The Coin' Colavecchio -- whose counterfeiting prowess was featured on The History Channel and the BBC -- will be the guest speaker for the Litchfield-Morris Rotary on Thursday, Jan. 4 at noon at Forman School.

“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.”

The event is open to the public [Rotary members and guests]. Contact Chuck Conn, 860-806-1550 / cbcthree@aol.com or Andy Thibault, 860-690-0211 / tntcomm82@cs.com.

Colavecchio will be introduced by retired Connecticut State Police Detective Sergeant Jerry Longo, who arrested him.

“Louis came up with a brilliant plan," Longo said. "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 OK 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."

“You Thought It Was More” is 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 US 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. For example, casinos 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.

Who knew metallurgy could be riveting? Novelist Pam Lewis asked that question in a book jacket quote.

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.

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. As an established businessman, Benedict

Colavecchio and his wife Theorora encouraged young Louis to gain an education.

While working fulltime, Louis Colavecchio earned a degree in business administration from Providence College.

Colavecchio was such a great counterfeiter – The Providence Journal reported – that after he spent more than two years in federal prison for his handiwork, he was paid $18,000 by the feds as a consultant to explain why his manufacturing dies outlast those at the U.S. Mint.

They say he was a hero in Providence as well because The Coin did not rat out any of his friends.

Following is a link to a New London Day profile of Colavecchio, which ran nationwide via the Associated Press:

Penny for the thoughts of counterfeiter Louis ‘The Coin’ is money well spent