At one time, a counterfeiter needed certain skills to produce a phony but genuine-looking $20 bill.

Now, it only takes a high-end computer printer and a few minutes.

The changing technology, police said, allowed two college roommates, still teenagers, to print off a few fake $20s and exchange them for real cash at four hotels on Peach Street near Interstate 90 on Sept. 13.

On Sept. 28, police said, a group of still-unidentified suspects paid for $400 worth of merchandise with counterfeit bills they passed at Lowe’s on Keystone Drive. Police said a woman on Sept. 28 also left counterfeit $20 bills behind at the nearby Wal-Mart.

The local cases show counterfeit money still is in circulation, despite the recent changes to currency designed to make fake bills easier to spot.

But counterfeit cases are also easier to solve, said James Gehr, the U.S. Secret Service agent who oversees western Pennsylvania and West Virginia. He said fake bills produced on computer printers are easier to detect than those produced on far more sophisticated offset printing presses.

Losses to counterfeiting in western Pennsylvania totaled $140,000 this fiscal year, which ended Oct. 1, down from $230,000 the year before, Gehr said. As the local cases illustrate, merchants especially still need to keep a close watch on the currency that comes across their counters.

In the case of counterfeit bills passed at the four hotels, state police charged Alyssa L. Diebel, 19, and Amber L. Silk, 18, both of St. Marys. The pair, roommates at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, asked the front-desk clerks at the hotels to break $20 bills that turned out to be counterfeit, troopers alleged in a search warrant in the case.

The $20 bills — all with the same serial number — were passed at four hotels in 15 minutes on Sept. 13: Hampton Inn, 8050 Oliver Road; Country Inn & Suites, 8040 Oliver Road; Holiday Inn Express, 8101 Peach St.; and Comfort Inn, 8051 Peach St.

In the chaos of ringing phones, check-ins and check-outs, the lone clerk at the Holiday Inn Express — attached to Splash Lagoon Indoor Water Park — gave the woman change without thinking about it, hotel general manager Linda Holland said.

“You have so many people in and out of this hotel, especially with the water park, you can’t really tell who’s staying at the hotel,” Holland said.

The bill wasn’t discovered as a fake until the clerk later checked it with an anti-counterfeit pen, Holland said.

Catching a counterfeit bill isn’t always as easy as using a pen. The Secret Service’s Gehr said the anti-counterfeit pens are designed to detect starch in paper.

Real bills are made of a cloth and linen mix, Gehr said, so counterfeit bills printed on a cloth would go undetected.

Gehr said checking bills by hand, against another bill, if possible, typically works best in rooting out counterfeit cash.

“Any device can be defeated,” Gehr said of the pens. “They are good as a tool, but you still have to use your eyes for comparison.”

Silk and Diebel are accused of using $20 and $10 bills, all with the same two serial numbers, police said.

Police said investigators found printed $10 bills in the trash of their dorm room with scraps of cut paper. Two $10 bills were in Diebel’s purse when they were arrested, police said.

The $20 bills were passed at least at all four hotels and the Giant Eagle at 7200 Peach St., police said. Two turned up in the parking lot outside of the grocery store. Several were found in Silk and Diebel’s dorm room, and police said Silk tried to hide another in her pants when police first stopped the two.

Police said investigators found a genuine $20 bill in Diebel’s purse, folded in a credit card holder behind her Pennsylvania identification card. The counterfeit bills had the same serial number as the genuine bill, police said.

Domestic counterfeiters commonly copy bills in smaller denominations, Gehr said.

The smaller the denomination, he said, the more it blends in — people usually use a $20 bill when shopping, but a $100 bill draws unwanted attention.

An accidental crime?
They blamed it on “Travis.”

Silk and Diebel told police they needed money, so they sold a camcorder to a man they identified as “Travis” in St. Marys, police said in the arrest documents. Police said the two told investigators that Travis paid them in counterfeit bills — bills they were trying to spend so they would not lose out.

Suspects in counterfeit cases typically tell investigators they received their fake currency from another source, sometimes a person, but usually a bank or ATM, Gehr said.

Getting a counterfeit from a bank is “very rarely going to happen,” Gehr said. “Bank officials are very good at identifying counterfeits.”

When a counterfeit note does slip through, having one is not automatically a crime. Intent is a large part of counterfeit law, Gehr said, and he said authorities would clear anyone who passes a counterfeit without knowing it was fake. The Secret Service urges anyone to report a suspected counterfeit bill.

Silk and Diebel are awaiting a preliminary hearing on Oct. 22, and their case, if held for trial, will go to Erie County Common Pleas Court.

Small-time counterfeiting cases, in which only a few counterfeit notes are passed, are usually tried as local offenses, Gehr said. He said the federal government usually handles larger printing operations.

The U.S. Treasury Department, which includes the Secret Service, continues to increase security measures for tracking counterfeit bills, to keep up with increases in technology, Gehr said. He said the Treasury Department is confident that no counterfeiter can make an undetectable fake bill.

“They’re never 100 percent,” he said.

CODY SWITZER can be reached at 870-1776 or by e-mail.

Local counterfeit cases
State police last month arrested two Edinboro University of Pennsylvania students on charges they passed counterfeit bills at four hotels on Peach Street near Interstate 90 on Sept. 13.

Alyssa L. Diebel, 19, and Amber L. Silk, 18, were arraigned before Summit Township District Judge James Dwyer on four counts each of forgery and theft by deception

Each is out of prison on $50,000 cash bond, and their preliminary hearing is Oct. 22

If convicted, each defendant faces up to 15 years in prison and a fine, authorities said.

State police are still looking for the people who passed counterfeit bills in Summit Township on Sept. 28.

Police said a woman walked out of the Summit Township Wal-Mart with a camcorder — and she left behind only counterfeit $20 bills.

Police said two women and a man also used $400 in fake $20 bills at the nearby Lowe’s store, 1930 Keystone Drive, between 8:30 and 8:50 p.m. the same day.

The cases are still under investigation, and police declined to comment on them. Police asked anyone with information on the cases to call investigators at 898-1641.

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