Little Leaguers strike out after crooks play hardball

A woman used counterfeit $50 bills to rip off a Little League concession stand at David Douglas Park for about $250 in the past few days.

And a similarly described woman appears to have tried to pass off a bogus $50 at Harmony Sports Complex in east Vancouver.

Kim Crowell, treasurer with Columbia Little League, said volunteers accepted two of the bogus $50s during all-day baseball games on Saturday last weekend and two more Tuesday evening.

Nothing seemed suspicious until volunteers examined the bills closely, Crowell said.

The print was fuzzy and the paper seemed thicker than normal.

“Other than that, they looked good,” Crowell said, “But when I took them to the bank, they said ‘no.’”

Oddly, some of the bills passed muster using fraud-detection pens, Crowell said.

The five bills had only two serial numbers between them, Crowell said. When she presented them to bank employees, they kept them to give to federal agents.

The Secret Service is charged with investigating counterfeit bills, but The Columbian wasn’t able to immediately contact an agent in the Portland office.

On Thursday, “We told everyone not to take any $50 bills,” but a volunteer didn’t get the message and accepted one, Crowell said.

“I said, ‘Let me see that. Who gave it to you?’” Crowell said. “He said, ‘That lady over there.’”

Someone called 911 and the woman fled on foot. The woman, who disappeared, was described as having long brown hair with a reddish tint. She wore a dark-gray or dark-brown sweatshirt or vest that appeared to have its hood trimmed with fur, Crowell said.

Busy volunteers, with different ones working the concession stand at times, aren’t trained to spot counterfeit bills, Crowell said.

The counterfeiting at David Douglas is under active investigation and a police officer has suspects, Officer Missy Ross with the Vancouver Police Department said late Friday night.

Similar attempt

A similarly described woman tried to pass a likely counterfeit $50 bill at Harmony Sports Complex on Thursday evening, said Barbara Denny, treasurer with Cascade Little League.

Denny said she was cooking on the grill in the concession stand when two women came up and offered a $50 bill.

“It didn’t look right,” said Denny. “I said, ‘It doesn’t feel right. I’m not going to take it.’”

As with the bills passed at David Douglas, Denny said the print was blurry and “it felt thick.”

Volunteers returned it to the women, who “went on their merry way,” Denny said.

Two volunteers followed the women to the parking lot, where they left in a red Volkswagen, possibly a Bug or Jetta. Volunteers hadn’t seen them at games before and they didn’t have any Little Leaguers with them, Denny said.

“This is Little League. Everyone has a kid or a grandkid.”

Both women had long brown hair and one had a “really loud red streak” in hers, Denny said.

Volunteers provided the car’s license number to police, Denny said.

Not the first crime

Crowell and Denny said it was the first time they’d heard of counterfeit bills showing up at concession stands, but both said it’s not the first time Columbia and Cascade little leagues have been victimized by thieves.

Last fall, Columbia Little League was hit hard by thieves who stole copper wire from the lighting system at David Douglas. The league was left to fend for itself, working to replace lights with minimal financial support from Vancouver-Clark Parks and Recreation.

The wiring cost about $7,000 to replace; insurance paid only part of the cost.

“It’s pretty bad when thieves like this stoop to stealing from the kids,” Crowell said in an e-mail. “We were just beginning to recover from metal theft in the fall, and now this.”

She said later that even the $250 taken in the past several days is a lot for the league, money that is needed to buy baseball equipment for the players.

“We’re all volunteers, and the concession stand is one of our primary sources of income,” she said.

Auction tonight

Tonight, beginning at 6, the volunteers will be auctioning off donated items to raise money at the Elks lodge at Southeast Chkalov Drive and McGillivray Boulevard, Crowell said.

Thieves also have stolen expensive electrical wiring at Harmony, Denny said.

In addition, she said, crooks occasionally break into parked cars by smashing windows during games “in broad daylight,” stealing such things as a laptop and a purse.

Modern computer equipment makes it easy to counterfeit poor-quality bills that might fool amateurs, such as the parent volunteers at concession stands.

Real $50 bills have hard-to-counterfeit features including fine printing details and watermarks, and are printed on paper with red, white and blue fibers.

It’s also revealing to hold newer genuine bills up to a light and look for water marks and a translucence that shows what’s on the reverse side.

John Branton: 360-735-4513 or john.branton@columbian.com.