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Police in McMinnville said they’ve never seen counterfeit money of such good quality before, and they believe more of it may be circulating.
The flaws in the bills can be seen under a light, but not by the ultraviolet pens many store clerks use to detect counterfeit money. Several bills were discovered last weekend at a McMinnville bank and a nearby WalMart, and investigators said the bills were difficult to detect because they were made from actual cotton fiber notes from the U.S. Mint.
"There’s a chemical they put in it and it actually lifts the ink from the paper, and basically you come out with just the white piece of paper, and they in return scan it off into a denomination they choose," said McMinnville Police Investigator Marty Cantrell.
The bills discovered over the weekend were $100’s, which were larger than the bills that are normally counterfeited. Cantrell said those bills also had other signs of being counterfeit.
"The serial number here on this bill and here on this bill are identical. So basically, that tells us obviously they counterfeited the same bill to make these two," Cantrell said.
Clerks working registers are trained to feel for phony cash. One cashier who heard about the counterfeit bills in McMinnville ordered more ultraviolet pens just to be prepared.
"We mark everything that is a $20 bill and up...every bill that we get, even out of the ATM," Donna Waller said.
Investigators said this isn’t the first time the city has seen counterfeit bills, and they were concerned that more bills of different denominations may surface.
"It’s possible for anything. There could very well be other ones coming," Cantrell said.
Police say you should call them if you think you have a counterfeit bill.