Funny money is circulating in the Southland. Bogus bills have been passed to businesses in towns from New Lenox to Chicago Heights to Orland Park, police say.
Tens, twenties, fifties and even hundreds change hands in Matteson, Park Forest and Country Club Hills, among others, as counterfeiters try to spot gullible cashiers at gas stations, fast-food restaurants, grocery stores and even upscale department stores.
Counterfeiting is nothing new, but some of the counterfeiters likely are, according to local police, thanks in part to technology.
Police chiefs from Southland towns, as well as officials from the Secret Service — the federal agency established in 1865 specifically to fight counterfeiting — aren’t chalking the crimes up to an organized counterfeiting ring. Instead, they say, individuals are acting alone, hopping on their home computers and using today’s sophisticated graphics software to print the phony bucks.
“With the technology available out here now, high school kids can make believable currency,” Country Club Hills Police Chief William Brown said. “We’re going to keep our antennas up.”
Those antennas still work despite the counterfeiters’ high-tech efforts. The Secret Service made 3,028 counterfeiting arrests nationwide in the past year and helped remove more than $261 million in fake money from circulation, according to the agency’s annual report.
About 63 percent of the counterfeit money was produced using digital printing means, compared with less than 1 percent in 1995, the report said.
Derrick Golden, the assistant to the special agent in charge of Chicago’s Secret Service office, calls the growing class of phony money makers “leisure counterfeiters.”
“You have the high school kid or college kid in the dorm room experimenting with it,” Golden said. “They may get brave enough to see if they can pass it at a store.”
But the arrests are real ...
While counterfeiting may have come a long way from the days of people taping the corners of high-denomination bills over singles or sticking one fake bill in a handful of real ones, suspected counterfeiters still are getting caught.
In November, a Chicago woman was charged after an incident in Orland Park in which police found nearly $1,500 in fake bills in the car in which she was a passenger.
Shantell Hawthorne, 25, of 50 71st St., was charged with forgery Nov. 30 after attempting to use counterfeit $20 bills to buy $500 worth of items from Macy’s at Orland Square Mall, police said. They said officers also found in the car about $800 worth of merchandise from the Express and Victoria’s Secret stores in the mall that had been bought using counterfeit money, and $1,460 in additional counterfeit bills.
Park Forest Deputy Police Chief Mike McNamara said his officers usually make a couple of arrests per year for counterfeit money.
“(Counterfeiters) usually get caught because of poor quality,” McNamara said. “I think it’s someone looking for an easy way to make money, and they think their ability to fool people is better than what it actually is.”
Golden said duplicating cash accurately is harder than ever due to the changing face of money. The latest major change in 2004 features a borderless, slightly off-center presidential portrait and a new multicolored background among other changes.
Brown said it’s important for cashiers to examine bills for watermarks and mark them with counterfeit detector pens that turn the ink a different color if a bill isn’t legitimate.
“Once you’ve handled enough bills, you get a sense if you pick one up and it doesn’t feel right,” Brown said. “The cash handlers are getting as sophisticated as those trying to move it. Who is paying the most attention is victimized least.”
Chicago Heights Police Chief Michael Camilli said counterfeiters are more likely to get caught if they get greedy.
“You’re not going to go out and use a tremendous amount of phony money on a large-dollar ticket because someone will catch it,” Camilli said. “You put it out in small amounts in different places for less suspicion.”
Seven counterfeiting incidents were reported to his department in August, September and November. Only one involved a bill larger than $50.
Brown said more fake money gets exchanged during the busy holiday shopping season. Fake $20 bills were used to buy food at McDonald’s and a T-shirt from a vendor in separate incidents in Country Club Hills in November.
“These guys who move that money are good at what they do and how they do it,” Brown said. “It’s the old game of cat and mouse we’ve played for a hundred years as police officers.”
But even with crafty thieves and available technology, counterfeit cash isn’t flooding the market. Golden said the amount of fake money in circulation is minute compared to genuine currency in the United States.
And that’s for good reason, in his opinion.
“There are more honest people in the world than there are criminals,” he said.
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