History -  Catching Counterfeiters: 

Robertson must have turned to the next investigation. a case against against a gang of counterfeit coiners, with some trepidation.  Nonetheless, the necessity of breaking up this band convinced him, once again, to dispatch his Deputies in pursuit. In Robertson's view. those who made and passed counterfeit coins were "the most-secret and successful perpetrators of crime in the country." Arresting them became his principal goal.

Fortunately. in this instance, the Department authorized the Marsha to reimburse his Deputies their out-of-pocket expenses; but it refused to pay the Deputies for their time and trouble Shortly afterward. Marshal Robertson pursued counterfeiters into Virginia and Kentucky, working assiduously to rid Ohio of its large population of coneymen.

The Marshals in Pennsylvania and New York were also plagued with bogus money. The problem continued to grow, overwhelming the limited time and resources available to the Marshals. In the mid l860s, Congress finally recognized that the ease of counterfeiting money demanded special attention to prohibit it. In 1865, it created the Secret Service, placing it under the Secretary of the Treasury, as the federal government's first investigative agency.

Originally, the Secret Service was too small and too disbursed, its arrest powers too limited, to cope with the problem by itself. Marshals continued to assist in the investigations and in making the arrests.  But the creation of the Secret Service effectively transferred responsibility for catching counterfeiters from the Marshals to the new agency. This transfer freed the Marshals to concentrate on other areas of law enforcement and court operations.

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