The Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office has a warning for everyone in southern Colorado: be on the lookout for counterfeit bills.
Several businesses have already fallen victim and there’s no telling just how much money they’ve lost.
The sheriff’s office says it’s retrieved dozens of fake $100 bills.
Lieutenant Clifford Kindred said, ‘"What we’ve been noticing recently is some of the bills that have been circulating, the $100 bills, they’ve been saying "FOR MOTION PICTURE USE ONLY."’
These bills are making the rounds at places like the Walmart and Sonic in Pueblo West, and the McDonald’s near Blende.
Kindred said, "It’s just pretty much that they was doing maybe a total of their drawer and they noticed the fake $100 bill. They’re kind of concerned…usually the business calls us to come retrieve the money. A lot of times, usually, there’s no suspect on scene. Normally the bills already been passed several times. We’re there just to pretty much collect the bills and go from there…it’s not common where we have many of these calls, but we just noticed lately we’ve been having a rash of them."
The tricky part, he says, is figuring out where these bills are coming from. By the time law enforcement retrieves them they’ve already been passed through several hands.
"It’s kind of hard to get to the source, but we’re looking into it to try to figure out where it’s originating."
In the meantime, he wants to educate people in the hopes of preventing others from being duped.
"If they can clearly look at the bill and something seems out of place compared to another one then of course that should raise suspicion that it’s counterfeit."
Lieutenant Kindred says other indicators that a bill is counterfeit include raised watermarks or printing and blurry borders. This situation is under investigation.
