Counterfeit bills passed in Mount Olive

Mount Olive, N.C. — Police on Monday were investigating several instances of counterfeit currency being presented at local businesses.

Seven counterfeit bills have been reported to the police department, and several others have been turned over to the U.S. Secret Service by local financial institutions. The bills started turning up at local businesses last Thursday and continued through the weekend.

The bills are printed on legal U.S. currency paper. The ink on the bills appears to be a $100 bill. When a counterfeit pen is used the ink shows the bill to be legal tender, but if the bill is held up to a light source, the $5 metal strip can be seen inside the paper on the left side of the bill and the President Lincoln portrait watermark can be seen in the bottom right.

All of the fake bills have one of two serial numbers: FL 75184706 B or DE 55431741 A, police said.

The Mount Olive Police Department is working with the Goldsboro Police Department, Wayne County Sheriff’s Office and U.S. Secret Service to identify and locate persons of interest in this case. Anyone with information about the case is asked to call the Mount Olive Police Department through Wayne-Goldsboro Crime Stoppers at 919-735-2255.

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Latest Comments

I read a book by Lee Child a few years ago and this was how they were counterfiting. Course the hero charactor in the book, Jack Reacher, shuts them down! lol

ncmickey
July 14, 2008 6:05 p.m.

Snakebite Survivor

Thanks, a very informative article.

ops12305
July 14, 2008 4:58 p.m.

The "counterfeit pen" isn't very reliable anyhow. It uses an iodine compound to detect starch which is present in most copy papers, but not in rag papers (like those used in currency). These guys bleached fivers (a common trick), which defeats the pen, but they didn't have to even do that, as rag papers are available commercially, which pass the "pen test". There's an interesting article on this at:

http://www.randi.org/jr/120304youve.html