Real $5 bills appear as $100s to merchants

MOSES LAKE — Some people are trying to pass Abraham Lincoln off as Benjamin Franklin, and the Moses Lake Police Department is looking for information on the case.

The counterfeit bills have surfaced locally and have recently been passed at businesses in the area. The MLPD is trying to alert local businesses and people to the problem, where $5 bills are being bleached and re-stamped as $100s. Counterfeit bill pens often used by business owners to detect fake bills will not work, the MLPD said in a release, because the paper itself is genuine.

"It appears that they're bleaching the color, and then they're just reprinting them there," MLPD detective Annalisa Dobson said.

Dobson said the bills look like standard $100 bills, but are lighter in color and are exceptionally clean and crisp. MLPD detectives have seen as many as 10 of these bills surface in Moses Lake, and they appear to be the same type of bills that have also surfaced in Chelan and Snohomish counties.

"It's definitely happening," she said, "it's definitely spreading."

The Grant County Sheriff's Office said Thursday that they had not yet had any run-ins with the bills.

To determine if the bill is a fake, Dobson encouraged merchants and others to hold the bills up to the light and try and distinguish them from real bills. The watermark on the right front side of the fake $100 bill will show a second portrait of Lincoln if the bill is a fake, where a portrait of Franklin should be.

Anyone with information on the fake bills is encouraged to contact the Moses Lake Police Department at (509) 766-9230. The MLPD has asked businesses to call 911 immediately if they have suspect information.