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Grand Forks RCMP warn local merchants about counterfeit $100 bills

Businesses in Grand Forks are being advised to be on the lookout for counterfeit $100 bills with the serial number EJK4145615.
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Grand Forks RCMP are advising local merchants to be mindful when handling money. There were cases of counterfeit $100 reported yesterday.

Businesses in Grand Forks are being advised to be on the lookout for counterfeit $100 bills with the serial number EJK4145615.

According to Grand Forks RCMP's Staff Sgt. Jim Harrison, a pair of businesses (Subway and the gas station at Extra Foods) reported the counterfeit currency yesterday.

The bills were recreations of the Canadian Journey series paper bank notes, as opposed to the new Frontier series polymer bank notes that were introduced in 2011.

"Basically the business owners from two businesses in town brought them in to us," Harrison said. "We do have a suspect who passed the forged bills and our investigation is proceeding. We don't know how many more are out in the community but we strongly suspect if there are two, there's likely more."

Harrison said that if there are more counterfeit bills, they will likely have the identical serial numbers and the ones handed over to them yesterday were poor imitations, as the hologram on one bill had the No. 10 as opposed to 100.

"Normally with counterfeit bills, there are several detection methods. Businesses that have the ultraviolet light can detect it for certain markings. The other thing that is very difficult for criminals to reproduce are planchettes in the paper, which are little green discs that are actually put in the paper when the paper is manufactured, so they can't be drawn on and if they are, it's very apparent," explained Harrison, adding that the planchettes can be seen by holding a bill up to a light.

Harrison also said the ink on modern currency bills never dries, so if people were to take a legal paper bill – as opposed to one recreated on a printer – and rub it on paper, some of the colour would come off.

"That's indicative that it's a real bill," Harrison said.

"If in doubt, you're not obligated to accept it. We would prefer if you contacted us. If your store has video then we want to find out who is passing the bills because of course, what the purpose of our investigation is, is to track it back as far as we can to determine how the bills are coming into our community and in fact, if we can track it back to find out who's actually manufacturing the counterfeit bills, that's our ultimate goal," he went on to say.

Grand Forks RCMP can be contacted at 250-442-8288.



Karl Yu

About the Author: Karl Yu

After interning at Vancouver Metro free daily newspaper, I joined Black Press in 2010.
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