Posted at: 09/07/2012 6:21 PM
Updated at: 09/07/2012 7:00 PM
By: Gordon Severson

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Deputies Deal with Counterfeit Bills

(ABC 6 NEWS) -- Counterfeiting is once again posing problems for a handful of cashiers in our area.

We've had two cases this week alone.

Deputies say there are a few things you should keep in mind.

First of all, the feeling of the paper. Fake bills feel a little more stiff than real ones.

That’s caused by the different style of paper that some counterfeiters use.

Next thing is to hold it up to the light. Look for the magnetic strip. It's usually near the edge of the bill.

The last thing is to look for the watermark of the president on the right side of the bill.

The fake bills first turned up at Walmart North in Rochester.

Deputies recovered 13 counterfeit bills. All of them were 20's and many with the same serial number.

The fake money also turned up at the Byron Marketplace.

The bank discovered it when the company tried to deposit some of the cash.

Investigators say the counterfeiters are probably using 20’s because they're more common and aren't typically checked by cashiers.

"When you get to the 50's and the 100's less people carry them. The store is more apt to check it. For that reason they don't get many of them. They're more apt to take the few seconds to check it for counterfeit,” Olmsted County Detective Lee Rossman explains.

Investigators are trying to figure out if the two cases are part of an ongoing counterfeit ring or simply coincidences.

Either way, they're asking people to take the extra time to check any large bill they come across.