Counterfeiters Use Scissors and Glue

Counterfeiters are putting their art skills to work in Horn Lake turning a $10 bill into a $100 bill using scissors and glue.

Investigators say they've never seen anything like it. The counterfeit bills are easy to pass off because they look and feel real, but they're also easy to spot, if you know what to look for.

Steve Stearns, the owner of Enchanted Garden in Horn Lake, Mississippi may be good at making floral arrangements but he recently got a lesson in a different kind of arts and crafts when a customer passed off a counterfeit $100 bill. Stearns says, "the next day when we went to make deposit. It didn't match up with the rest of them."

Stearns took the money to the Horn Lake Police Department. Lt. Scott Evans immediately knew it was counterfeit, "If you see here these (tens) have come off, so down here it says $10 up here it shows $100."

Investigators say the counterfeiters cut the zero from a $10 bill and paste it on to another $10 bill to make it look like $100. The crooks then use the fake bills at stores. The change is profit.

Stearns says the customer used this counterfeit cash to buy a $30 floral arrangement, “We swept it with counterfeit pen, tested fine, bill looked fine and we gave him change $67, store money."

Because the bills were actually $10 bills, the markers used to spot fake paper don't work. Lt. Evans says there are some other notable changes, "they've covered up the "TEN" at the bottom of the dollar it says "DOL" dollars. Notice here $100 is over the seal, they erased off it off the $10. In other words the bills don't stick out to you. On back of a $10 says US Treasury and it has the Treasury building. On the back of $100 bill is Independence Hall. A lot of people don't know that kind of stuff."

But the easiest way to spot these fakes is the faces on the bills. Lt. Evans says, "On $100 bill is a Franklin, Hamilton is not on a $100. People, consumers, stores are going to have to watch a bit closer not trust that pen, they're gonna have to actually look."

While it's easy money for some, it's a hard lesson learned for others, like Stearns. Stearns says, "For a small business like us, trying to get things going for Christmas, that money's going to be missed."

The bills have been turned over to the Secret Service. Horn Lake Police think the same man is responsible for passing off the fake money at both garage sales and Enchanted Gardens. In both places the suspect was described as an Hispanic man between 5 foot 6 and 5 foot 7, 160 to 170 pounds.