Authorities are warning of individuals scrubbing $1 bills to turn them into $100.
police in Hawaii are warning of people taking low denomination dollar bills and turning them into $100 bills. Per the outlet, police believe it has happened around a dozen times in the past month in the town of Hilo, Hawaii.
KHON2’s reporters spoke with a cashier at Ohana Foods, who said she felt something was wrong when she was handed a $100 on Saturday for a $15 purchase.
“I did our protocols and procedures which is to mark the bill with the marker and lift it up to see if it has the black line that all real money has,” sales associate and cashier Maelyn Ramos told KHON2. “When she gave me the bill, it looked different from a regular $100.”
The cashier told the station’s reporters that the woman attempting to pay told her it was an old bill.
“I had an old bill in our tip jar so I pulled it out on the side and I said it looks different, it’s more of a yellowish tone vs the bill she gave me was black, a lot of the print was black,” Ramos explained to the station.
Per the outlet, Ramos marked the bill with the marker and it came out yellow, which meant it was real currency.
“So I was confused, I put it in the air, I saw the black line, and I asked my supervisor too,” Ramos explained to the station.
After lifting the bill another time, Ramos was able to make out a faded “1” at the top corner, as well as faint letters, per the outlet, which reported that Ramos then compared the odd bill to another $1 bill.
“I realized this is real money, it was a one dollar bill they bleached or washed and printed $100 on top. My gut instinct was telling me something was wrong, and its scary what people are doing now because a lot of people would have looked at it and said it’s real; which I was close to doing at that point but something in me was like it doesn’t look okay,” Ramos told the station.
Ramos told KHON2’s reporters that the woman then said that the bill was from her boss and her payroll.
“I told her this is a counterfeit bill, it’s not $100, I can’t give it back to you, I’m going to have to report this to Hawaii island police. After I said HPD she got a little shaken up and asking for the money back, but you know, we can’t do that because we’re giving her another opportunity to try it somewhere else,” Ramos told the outlet.
Per the station, Ramos was handed a second $100, which she said was “the exact same thing.”
“It was washed, so I collected two and told her this was counterfeit too and she said she needed the money back so she could tell her boss and her boss was going to hear it from her,” Ramos explained to KHON2.
Ramos told the station that she then noticed the woman had several $20’s in her wallet and asked her if she would like to pay using one. Per the station, the woman declined to pay with one of the $20 bills.
“That’s when it popped in my head, that’s where she got the $20’s from, she’s giving stores fake $100 to get real cash out of it, and she doesn’t want to use the real money,” Ramos explained to KHON2.
Authorities in Hawaii told the outlet that they’ve had about a dozen cases involving this kind of counterfeit.
“It appears the culprits are taking $1, in another case a $2 bill and bleaching the ink off, and printing over the original currency to make it look like a $100,” Hawaii Island Police Captain Rio Amon-Wilkins told KHON2.“Because it’s being printed on original U.S. currency notes, the pen still works properly and doesn’t identify it as counterfeit.”
“This is the first time, to my knowledge, we’ve had this type of case where they’re using the original U.S. currency notes,” Captain Amon-Wilkins told the outlet.
The captain said suspects will often purchase items of small value in order to get a large amount of real currency back.
“If you buy something for $5 and get $95 back in real currency, you’ve now washed your hand of the bill and in that case, the stores are the victims because they’re out $100,” Captain Amon-Wilkins told KHON2.
Police advised people to be aware when accepting larger bills and pay close attention to the details. The captain also advised people to get a description of those who attempt to pass the bills along, to get a vehicle description, a license plate or surveillance video of the suspect or suspects.
“We’ve identified a few persons of interest that we’re looking into and trying to piece everything together and see if there’s a common denominator to these cases,” Captain Amon-Wilkins confirmed to KHON2.
