Not only do you have to be wary of customers trying to pass off phony currency you have to make sure your employees are using a proper counterfeit detecting marker as well.

Raleigh, N.C. — A former Kangaroo gas station employee faces charges of conspiracy after police said he accepted 20 counterfeit bills.

Police
said on Aug. 19, Timothy White, 19, of 315 Wrenn Street in Apex,
accepted the $100 bills and pretended to use a counterfeit marking pen
when he checked the bills, according to a warrant released by the
Raleigh Police Department.

White is accused of conspiring with unknown persons to commit the felony of obtaining property by false pretense.

Counterfeit $1 and $5 bills are circulating through businesses in Humboldt County, and investigators with the Eureka Police Department are working to sort out who’s passing the bucks unwittingly and who is to blame.

”They’re getting passed left and right,” said Sgt. Patrick O’Neill, the lead investigator in the case. “The hurdle is tracking down the people who are passing these and then finding out what their involvement is.”

Thousands of counterfeit dollars have been identified since a rash of small bills began circulating in May, but Eureka Police Department spokesman Murl Harpham said their use has increased over the past two weeks.

O’Neill estimates only $300 to $400 in faux bucks have actually been spent and reported, but considering the small denominations used, that’s around 100 counterfeit bills lining Eureka businesses’ tills.

Most of the bills have been spent at gas stations and convenience stores, where large bills are often checked using marking pens that detect forged money. However, O’Neill said cashiers often do not use the pen on $1 and $5 bills.

”Often the pen isn’t used on small bills, but it reacts the same way,” O’Neill said.

No suspects have been arrested, O’Neill said.

”At this time we don’t have anything solid to go off of. We have identified people who are involved in the passing, but is it someone who got it in change, or
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somebody who’s actually involved in it?”

Last week, authorities spoke with a transient woman who was carrying around $4,000 in counterfeit $5 bills, O’Neill said.

According to Harpham, the woman told police she found the bills in a Dumpster, and later led them to the site, which was located behind an apartment occupied by a person authorities previously questioned for allegedly passing counterfeit bills.

”We’re taking the woman’s word for it they came out of the Dumpster,” Harpham said.

O’Neill said he isn’t certain how the bills are being made, as there are a variety of methods that can be used to forge a dollar. But the bills have been printed on ordinary copy paper, “or something similar,” O’Neill said.

”The paper feels different,” he said. “It appears slightly different, too.”

According to a 2006 report from the U.S. Department of the Treasury, about one in every 10,000 U.S. notes is counterfeit.

Many of the $5 bills found in Humboldt County have a serial number of FL51355473A. The $1 bills have been observed with the following serial numbers: L59213375L, L84466701G, H60622385B, L27228448A.

O’Neill said anyone who finds a bill or has information about the case should notify the Eureka Police Department at 441-4300.

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Take the 10 seconds and test each and every bill with a counterfeit detection method, or say goodbye to your hard earned money. Don’t learn the hard way like this guy did.

COLUMBIA, Tenn. - A counterfeiter has set his sights on Columbia.

He’s struck more than 20 times in the last two weeks.

If a clerk collects a counterfeit $20 bill there’s a good chance that bill is accidentally passed on to the next customer.

Police want business owners, their employees and customers to take a hard look at their money.

“I was busy. I got a line right beside me and I needed to finish it very fast,” said Mike Hanna, who owns a store.

Twice in the past two days, busy brought in the bucks.  But the $100 and the $20 bills weren’t worth the paper they were written on.

“It’s really bad to find something like this,” he said. “To find people who try to make some fake money.”

Hanna found out the money was counterfeit when the bank reported the bills to Columbia police.

“It looks very real for me. You can not say it’s fake or not fake. You have to check it with a pen,” he said.

Hanna would have checked the bills with a counterfeit pen but his customers were lined up.

Investigators said that’s the distraction the crook needed.

“That’s hard for me to check everything. Gonna be very bad for my business. People are gonna be late in the line,” he said.

In customer David Walls’ mind, counterfeiting is no different than shoplifting.

“I mean, I do a lot of work on the side you know stuff and if I got paid with counterfeit money, I wouldn’t know where it came from,” he said. “But I’ll tell you what. I’d be going back to see them for sure.”

“I hope the police can catch these people. Gonna find out where he’s at,” he said. “How’s he do this stuff? Because it really it looks real.”

The store clerk said the counterfeit bills had one unique feature. He said they looked faded as if they’d been washed in the laundry.

Police are analyzing the bills for any possible fingerprints or DNA to try and catch the counterfeiter.

Police said the phony money has been printed as $100, $50 and $20 bills.

In
Columbia, counterfeit money is on the rise. Over the past two weeks,
police discovered more than 20 cases of fake money. The bills are
mainly showing up at local businesses. Police want workers to be sure
and check any money received carefully by using a specially-designed
marker. They’re asking people to be careful and don’t accept money from
strangers. The bills currently circulating are hundreds, twenties,
fifties and tens. Investigators said they’re pursuing a number of leads
at this time.

A man from Lewiston got arrested last week on a felony charge for counterfeiting thousands of dollars.

LEWISTON - Since the start of spring, police and government agents have been investigating counterfeit money being passed around the city.

The investigation continued all summer, with Lewiston police and the U.S. Secret Service generating lead after lead to the origin of the funny money. As they investigated, more bogus bills turned up at local businesses.

Now, a local man is awaiting court action after he was charged with aggravated forgery, and police say more than $14,000 in bogus bills has been recovered.

Last week, 29-year-old Byron Smith of Montello Street was arrested on the felony charge. Police say Smith is responsible for thousands of dollars in counterfeit cash being distributed through local businesses.

Investigators said the fake bills were passed at corner stores, restaurants and coffee shops around the city.

They did not say what specific leads led to Smith as the primary suspect in the counterfeiting scheme. Police also implied that Smith may not have acted alone. The case remains under investigation and more arrests are likely, police said.

Smith has since posted bail and was freed from the Androscoggin County Jail in Auburn.
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If you are running a Garage Sale make sure to have the counterfeit pen with you. Most people don’t bother to check small bills, but with all the counterfeit money going around it pays to be safe.

Nearly $150 worth of fake money was used to buy tickets at Festa Italiana this weekend, and now more reports of counterfeit cash are surfacing. In an attempt to make money, many people in the Stateline are actually losing money at the hands of scam artists.
Police blame the influx of fake money on the stagnant economy, and improved technology. “As far as the upgrades of computers, printers, scanners, we do see an increase,” says Sgt. JR Randall, with the Rockford Police Department’s Investigative Services Unit.
But where these bad bills are showing up, might surprise you. Counterfeiters are taking fake cash straight to your front yard. Jessica Archibald was one of many this weekend, who got scammed at her own garage sale. “I wouldn’t think I’d need to look at a fifty or even a twenty at a garage sale, but it makes a lot of sense, because no one checks for that,” she says.
Jessica says a woman bought about four dollars worth of stuff, and paid with a $50 bill, asking first if Jessica had change. “Sure, not a problem,” she told the woman. “I got change, no big deal.”
It wasn’t until after the woman left, that she realized the money didn’t look right. “It was just a little bit smaller than the other 50’s,” she says. Jessica called police and took the $50 bill to a local bank where they confirmed it was fake.
It turns out Jessica had given $46 in change, to someone who never actually paid.
“They told me she was probably just taking it around to area garage sales, that’s how they make their money,” she says.
That’s because most businesses now have UV lights and special pens that can detect fake money, so counterfeiters are left with few places to spend their illegal dough. “The smaller the place, the easier it is to pass a bill,” Randall says. He says once a phony bill is in circulation, it’s nearly impossible to trace its origin.
The special pens can be bought at office supply stores. Police say the best piece of advice they can give is to be aware of all money you get - compare its coloring, texture, and size with the cash you already have on-hand.

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On Tuesday night Two men were arrested after a McDonald’s employee tipped off the police. These two men were making and distributing counterfeit money. Reports of counterfeit money are only getting worse and it’s highly advisable you get yourself a counterfeit pen before you run into counterfeit money.

ktrv

Boise, Idaho — Two men have been arrested for making and distributing counterfeit money.

Boise police say the two men have been passing fake 20-dollar bills over several days.

Tuesday night, they arrested Zane Dees and Scott Vance and charged them with felony forgery.

It happened when a McDonald’s employee at Overland and Cole roads recognized a fake 20-dollar bill and called authorities.

Dees and Vance were still at the restaurant when police arrived, and eventually confessed to detectives they have been passing several counterfeit 20-dollar bills.

“During the course of the investigation these two subjects both 18 years old, both individuals had been the last few days in both making counterfeit money and passing it at numerous locations across the valley”, said Boise Police Detective Wade Spain.

Police are asking other businesses to call them if they find a suspicious 20-dollar bill.

Dees and Vance were both arraigned Wednesday afternoon in Ada County.

The workers in Arkansas understand why its essential to have a counterfeit pen. One night club owner had stacks of $100 bills that were counterfeit that had to come out of his own pocket and could have been avoided if he had a counterfeit detector. The workers at Valero gas station are also reporting counterfeit bills and keep a counterfeit pen by the register to avoid ending up with funny money.

http://www.todaysthv.com/news/news.aspx?storyid=62061

Gas stations and other businesses should watch carefully because the money they accept may be worthless.

Every bill taken at the Valero gas station on Kanis and Rodney Parham is marked with a counterfeit detection pen because they’ve received funny money.

“We did the same thing,” say Steve Side who once owned a night club, so he understands. “We mostly got hundreds dollar bills,” he continues. “You get some of them that were really good. And some of them were really bad.”

Over time, Sides says the phony money continued to accumulate. “I had a stack of those hundred dollar bills probably five or six inches high that I had to turn over to the Secret Service. And those were hundred dollar bills and that’s just money out of my pocket.”

Brian Mar with the Secret Service says there’s always been counterfeit bills in circulation, but with the rise in food and gas prices, places like the Valero that deal with high volumes of cash, are susceptible to the counterfeiters. “Some of this currency is seized prior to being passed to the public and some of this currency is passed to the public,” Mar says. “What you see here is currency that has been passed to the public.”

It’s thousands and thousands of dollars that’s not worth the paper it’s printed on. But Mars says there are ways to protect yourself from being defrauded. “Genuine currency and counterfeit currency is very easy to tell apart if you’ll just take the time to look at it,” he explains. “There’s red and blue security fibers woven into the note itself in genuine currency.”

Mar says your eyes are the best counterfeit detector. “If you’re using the detection pen, go ahead and use it. But I would also make sure that I go ahead and check it against a genuine note.”

Or you can take the fake and lose like Steve Sides once did. “It’s just paper,” he says. “It’s not any good for anything.”

If you come across some of this counterfeit currency, Agent Mar says you should contact your police department for quickest response.

Worldwide, he says $765 billion in U.S. currency is in circulation and more than $100,000 of counterfeit cash has been identified in Arkansas.

Stories like this show why it’s important to have a counterfeit detector. This guy used his computer to make 80 $100 bills and nearly 400 $10 bills and went around local stores in Hartford to buy small items and get change in real money.

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/connecticut/ny-bc-ct–counterfeitcharge0303mar03,0,3875952.story

  HARTFORD, Conn. - A Windsor man has been sentenced to nine months in prison for making counterfeit money.

Dwight Benjamin pleaded guilty in June to one count of manufacturing counterfeit obligations, a federal crime. The 24-year-old has already served 13 months in prison on state forgery charges, so he won’t have to serve any more time on the federal charges.

U.S. Attorney Kevin O’Connor says that between April 2004 and February 2005, Benjamin used his computer to make 80 $100 bills and nearly 400 $10 bills. He used them at stores around Hartford to buy small items and get change in real money.

Three teenagers from Beverly were caught with approximately $1,350 in fake money according to a police report after employees from Stop & Shop and Shaw’s reported being given bogus $50 bills. The employees realized the bills were fake after using a counterfeit pen.

http://www.salemnews.com/punews/local_story_054070514.html

BEVERLY — Three Beverly teenagers are being charged in a scheme to pass counterfeit $50 bills at two local supermarkets last week.

John Paul Kehoe, 19, of 15 Pine Road, Beverly, was arrested yesterday morning, and two 16-year-olds will be summoned to appear in court on charges of uttering and possession of counterfeit notes.

Police began investigating after employees at Shaw’s and Stop & Shop reported they had been given bogus $50 bills on Feb. 13. After looking at security camera footage, Detective Jeff Liacos recognized some of the teenagers.

“I knew three of the four people through my experience of three years as a school resource officer,” Liacos said.

Police learned that the two 16-year-olds had made small purchases at Shaw’s with the phony $50 bills and received $47.71 and $46.21 in change. After they left, store employees marked them with a special pen and determined they were fake.

The pen contains iodine-based ink that shows up yellow or clear on real money because it’s printed on cotton fiber that doesn’t react to iodine. In these two cases, the ink showed up brown, which meant the money was either very old or fake, Liacos said.

After questioning the boys, police identified Kehoe as the person who provided the bills and got a warrant. Investigators learned Kehoe and three other teenagers were riding around in Kehoe’s gold Lexus, when Kehoe pulled out a wad of $50 bills, approximately $1,350, according to a police report. He told the younger teens that his friend had printed them and that he had been asked to carry them around to “age” them.

Liacos said the counterfeit money was fairly well forged.

“They were worn, and they looked passable,” he said. “But to the trained eye, they looked like junk.”

Kehoe allegedly doled out some of the fake money to the other teens, who passed them at the supermarkets. Police are still investigating who gave Kehoe the money.

Similar counterfeit bills have turned up in the course of another ongoing investigation, according to a police report.

Beverly police also called in the United States Secret Service, the agency that investigates counterfeit currency. It’s not out of the ordinary to request their assistance, Liacos said.

Ken Jenkins, assistant special agent in charge, said counterfeit cases are not very common, but when they do occur “It’s mostly younger, high school kids, or young adults.

“They’ll go into a local establishment, and when they find they can do it, they’ll do it again,” he said. The Secret Service is investigating whether the counterfeit currency was used in the past.

Kehoe pleaded not guilty at his arraignment in Salem District Court and was released on $300 cash bail. He’s due back in court on April 2.

Without the counterfeit pen the $1,350 of counterfeit bills that the teens had on them could still be circulating and there is no way to know who the next victim of counterfeit bills will be. So make sure you have a counterfeit detector if you’re in a business because it’s worth it to make 100% profit and for peace of mind.