The following report is by KHON 2:
Authorities said it’s happened about a dozen times in just the past month in Hilo.
A cashier at Ohana Foods in Hilo said she had a feeling something was off when a woman handed her a $100 bill on Saturday for her $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,” explained sales associate and cashier Maelyn Ramos. “When she gave me the bill, it looked different from a regular $100.”
Ramos said the woman 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 said.
When she marked the bill with the marker the color came out yellow, which means it’s real currency. “So I was confused, I put it in the air, I saw the black line, and I asked my supervisor too,” she added.
Ramos lifted up the bill one more time and noticed a faded “1” marking in the top corner.
She then noticed the faint letters printed on it too.
She took out a $1 bill and compared it with the money she had been handed.
“I realized this is real money, it was a one dollar bill they bleached or washed and printed $100 on top,” Ramos said. “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.”
She said the woman remained calm and said the money 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,” explained Ramos. “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.”
The woman handed Ramos another $100. “It 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.
Ramos noticed the woman had $20’s in her wallet. “I said do you want to pay with the 20s? And she said no, it’s not hers.”
“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 told KHON2.
“I’m glad I was able to catch that, and hopefully this will help others,” she said.
Hawaii Island police said they’ve had about one dozen cases in the last month of this type 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,” explained Hawaii island police Capt. Rio Amon-Wilkins. “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,” Amon-Wilkins added.
He said the people will purchase something of small value, “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.”
Over on Maui, MPD said on Friday, April 26, an individual attempted to buy something with a fake $100. Just like Ramos did, the person checked the bill’s validity with a counterfeit pen, but it showed it was printed on valid US currency paper. MPD said it was a $10 bill that had been ‘washed’ and ‘reprinted’ with the $100 bill cast.
Police said people should be aware when accepting larger bills and pay close attention to it.
“If you do think it’s counterfeit, you have the right not to accept it,”CAPT. RIO AMON-WILKINS, HAWAII ISLAND POLICE
“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,” he added.
He said people should get a good description of the person who passes the bill along, try and get a vehicle description, license plate, or surveillance footage can help identify the person who passes the fake bills along.
AUTHOR COMMENTARY
The irony of this was just too funny not to share. I mean, isn’t this what the government does? One commentor said, “34 trillion dollar national debt, who are the real counterfeiters?” Another wrote, “Basically someone is acting like the Fed.”
This is what fake wealth looks like, worthless paper with some ink that can be washed away.
Proverbs 23:4 Labour not to be rich: cease from thine own wisdom. [5] Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? for riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven.
[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).
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Ummm . . . there are different presidents on different denominations
Haha – I was just going to ask if she even looked at the Presidents. Perhaps people today don’t know who Washington and Franklin were!?
Peter,
Most likely. Schools don’t teach anything of worth, these days.
Oh, they teach them alright, they tell them they were all White slavers and that’s all they need to know!
The fake bill had Ben Franklin’s image so they covered that too. The one dollar bill has George Washington’s image
Recently in my Facebook feed was a demonstration showing a several step process with a $1 bill and a $100 bill. I didn’t watch the whole process but I figured the goal was to turn $1 into $100.
There’s no reason for that to be in my feed. Hmm, maybe the end goal is to show how vulnerable paper money is in order to prove we need cbdc. Idk.
CHECKS AND MAILBOXES ARE TARGETS TOO. SEE COMMENT BELOW THIS ONE. WATCH YOUR SIX!!
I have had checks taken out of the mailbox at my business. They stole outgoing checks from the outgoing box and incoming checks from the incoming box. All boxes have key locks. Turns out an employee, maybe more than one at the Davie Post Office, located around 10 miles West of Ft. Slaughterdale in Dem Hellhole Broward County, FL, was selling the key to the bulk mail boxes where one key opens an entire bank of boxes but from the rear where postal employees are SUPPOSED to DEPOSIT incoming mail and pick up outgoing mail.
These scumbags were caught as it was happening at more than one set of mail boxes not located on the premises. FIVE postal workers were arrested.
So, do what we do. Forget the convenience of the drop box in any mailbox systems and take the mail directly to the post office. That still leaves incoming mail to be stolen.
THE POINT IS: THESE THIEVES WERE ABLE TO BLEACH THE CHECKS, PUT THEIR NAMES AS PAYEES, CHANGE THE DOLLAR AMOUNT AND TRY TO CASH THEM AT THE BANK. Fortunately Chase Bank, surprise, surprise, caught the bad checks and send e-mails with images asking if these were legit.
Since the arrests, no more mail thefts have occurred. One box had the lock punched in with tools in an early attempt to gain access. Once they had the key they could access 20 or so boxes from the back. Scary. NOBODY IS REPORTING THIS TYPE OF THEFT AND SLICK FORGERY. NOBODY KNOW WHAT THEY USE TO BLEACH OUT THE TEXT ON THE CHECKS. ITS PROBABLY THE SAME STUFF USED ON THE ONE DOLLAR BILLS. NOTHING IS SAFE ANYMORE
The 100 dollar bills are coded with a special strip to deter counterfeits. I guess the feds don’t trust us with paper money.