The Billings office of the Unites States Secret Service has put out a warning to business owners and consumers in Montana concerning an unusually high number of high-quality counterfeit $100 bills.

"When we get bills that can be identified as counterfeit, we will put out a bulletin to businesses," said special agent Ian Blair.

Blair said the easiest way for people to pick out a fake bill is by feel, but this latest rash of counterfeits feel just like real money, because they were real money.

The bills' creators wash $5 bills with a chemical and the re-print Benjamin Franklin and the rest of the $100 bill where Abraham Lincoln once was.

But the bills aren't perfect. Blair said there are some visual clues that give them away a funny money.

Blair said the bills' watermark, which can be seen by holding it up to the light, is still Abraham Lincoln, and that for trained eyes, the security strip is wrong for a $100 bill.

"We've had a good number of passes (with this bill)," he said. "Over a dozen throughout the state."

The good news for Flathead Valley business owners is that the clever fakes don't seem to have made it here yet. Though multiple instances of the forged funds have cropped up in Missoula, local banks haven't seen the con.

Muffie Thomson of Flathead Bank in Lakeside said none of the fakes have come through, but that the bank handed out informational fliers to all of its commercial customers to let them know what to look out for.

"Some people have seen counterfeits, but in smaller denominations," Thomson said. "For the most part, we've managed to dodge the bullet."

Thomson and Blair agreed that while manufacturing passable fake currency used to be incredibly difficult to do, the advances in computers and printing have lowered the barrier to participate in that crime.

"In today's day and age, the best ones are produced outside the country," Blair said, likening the traffic of counterfeit money to that of illegal narcotics.

"It's carried in and goes to the bigger metro areas," he said. Then it starts to get out to the smaller, rural areas and they try to pass it over a three-day weekend."

Blair said that since the best tips for the secret service come not from banks or the federal reserve when they catch a fake, but from the cashier or clerk who realizes the con as it's taking place, the secret service tries to maximize education.

"That's why we spend so much time on brochures," he said. "The best lead is if the business owner picks up on it right when the transaction takes place."

Rocky Mountain Bank of Bigfork Customer Service Manager Alisha James said only one of their clients has had a fake $100 bill and that was back in June, which could be unrelated to the current scam.

"We train our tellers to go over the security features," she said. "That's what consumers are going to start having to look for."

Blair and the banks all said that tellers tend to be experts on fake cash because they handle so many bills each day.

"We're trying to bring everybody up to speed," Thomson said, noting that if there's any suspicion of a fake, the bank has to send it to the secret service, even though if a teller or business owner is skeptical, the outcome is all but certain.

"If there's a suspicion," she said, "it's never real."