The U.S. Secret Service has taken over the case of several counterfeit $50 bills that a woman passed at a Little League concession stand during baseball games at David Douglas Park last month.
Kim Crowell, treasurer with Columbia Little League, told Vancouver police that volunteer workers accepted two of the bogus bills during all-day games on May 15, two more on May 18, and a fifth on May 20.
Upon close inspection, the print was fuzzy, the paper seemed abnormally thick and the five fake $50s had only two serial numbers between them, she said.
Oddly, some passed muster using common fraud-detection pens available at office supply stores.
Crowell said she took the $50s to a bank, where employees said they were bogus and passed them on to federal officials.
Tip: you can interact with this map using your
fingerscursor (or two fingers on touch screens)cursor.
Map
In addition, two women tried to pass a strange-looking $50 at a concession stand at Harmony Sports Complex on May 20, said Barbara Denny, treasurer with Cascade Little League. In that case, Denny declined to take the bill. Volunteers said the women left in a red Volkswagen Jetta or Bug — and volunteers obtained its license number, she said.
Vancouver police made no arrest and the Secret Service took the case, said Ron Wampole, resident agent in charge of the Portland office.
An agent is investigating but had no suspect name, said Wampole. He said some bills were passed at a mall in Portland, but it wasn’t known if the cases were related.
The bogus $50s likely were real $5 bills that the counterfeiter bleached to remove the image, he said. The culprit likely then scanned a $50 bill with a computer and printed that image on the bleached paper, he said.
That could explain the poor-quality image — and possibly the report that some of the bogus $50s passed the fraud-pen test, since the paper itself was genuine, Wampole said.
It shouldn’t be hard to spot such counterfeit currency, when holding it up to a light, since the watermarks and other elements should remain even after bleaching, Wampole said.
A watermark of President Grant is on $50s, and President Lincoln is on $5s. There also are strips inside the paper of genuine bills that show the monetary value.
Wampole said counterfeiting is only a sporadic problem in this area. “It’s a pretty hard crime to commi,t” and other types of fraud are more lucrative, he said.
In the David Douglas Park case, the suspect stole $250 from the Little League, which is operated by volunteers who cook burgers and sell candy and sodas to raise cash. Funds are used to buy baseball equipment for the kids and cover other expenses.
That’s a significant amount of money for the league — but not much for the counterfeiter in light of the possible penalties if he or she is tracked down and convicted.
The Secret Service’s website, http://www.secretservice.gov, says, “Manufacturing counterfeit United States currency or altering genuine currency to increase its value is a violation of Title 18, Section 471 of the United States Code and is punishable by a fine or imprisonment for up to 15 years, or both.”
The same penalties apply to possessing counterfeit money “with fraudulent intent,” the website says.
