Police are warning that people are scrubbing $1 bills and turning them into $100 bills

HILO (KHON2) – A police warning is emerging as people take low-denomination U.S. bills and convert them into $100 bills.

Authorities said it happened about a dozen times in Hilo in the last month alone.

A cashier at Ohana Foods in Hilo said she felt something was wrong when she was handed a $100 bill for her $15 purchase on Saturday.

“I followed our protocols and procedures, which is to mark the bill with the marker and lift it to see if it has the black line that all real money has,” explained sales associate and cashier Maelyn Ramos. “When she gave me the bill, it looked different than a normal $100 bill.”

Ramos said the woman told her it was an old bill.

“I had an old bill in our tip jar, so I pulled it out the side and said it looks different, it’s more of a yellowish tone, whereas the bill she gave me was black, a lot of the printing was black,” Ramos said.

When she marked the bill with the marker, the color was yellow, meaning it was real money. “So I was confused, threw it in the air, saw the black line and asked my manager too,” she added.

Ramos picked up the bill again and noticed a faded 1 mark in the top corner.

Then she also noticed the faint letters printed on it.

She took out a $1 bill and compared it to the money that had been handed to her.

“I realized it was real money, it was a one dollar bill that they had bleached or washed and they had printed $100 on it,” Ramos said. “My gut feeling was telling me something was wrong and it’s scary what people are doing now because a lot of people would have looked at it and said it was real; I was close to doing it at that point, but something inside me felt like it didn’t look right.”

She said the woman remained calm and said the money came from her boss and their payroll.

“I told her it’s a counterfeit bill, it’s not a $100 bill, I can’t give it back to you, I have to report this to the Hawaii Island Police,” Ramos explained. “After I told HPD, she got a little upset and asked for the money back, but you know, we can’t do that because we’re giving her another opportunity to try somewhere else.”

The woman gave Ramos another $100. “It was exactly the same, it was washed, so I collected two and told her it was fake too and she said she needed the money back so she could tell her boss and her boss could tell her would find out about her,” Ramos explained.

Ramos noticed the woman had $20 bills in her wallet. “I said: Do you want to pay with the 20s? And she said no, it’s not hers.”

“That’s when it occurred to me that she got the $20 from there, that she was giving fake $100 to stores to make real money out of it, and that she didn’t want to use the real money,” Ramos told KHON2.

“I’m glad I was able to recognize this and hope it will help others,” she said.

Hawaii Island police said they have had about a dozen cases of this type of counterfeiting in the last month.

“Apparently the perpetrators take a $1 bill, in another case a $2 bill, bleach out the ink and overprint the original currency to make it look like a $100 bill,” Hawaii Island Police Capt. explained , Rio Amon-Wilkins. “Because it is printed on original U.S. banknotes, the pen still works perfectly and does not detect it as a counterfeit.”

“This is, to my knowledge, the first time we have had a case like this where the original U.S. banknotes were used,” Amon-Wilkins added.

He said people would buy something of little value: “If you buy something for $5 and get $95 back in real currency, you’ve now freed yourself from the bill and in this case the stores are the victims , because they are spending $100.”

Over in Maui, MPD says on Friday, April 26, a person attempted to purchase something with a counterfeit $100. Just like Ramos, the person checked the bill’s validity with a fake pen, but discovered that it was printed on valid U.S. currency paper. MPD said it was a $10 bill that had been “washed” and “reprinted” with the $100 bill.

Police said people should be careful and pay close attention when accepting larger bills.

“If you think it is fake, you have the right not to accept it.”

Capt. Rio Amon-Wilkins, Hawaii Island Police

“We have identified some people of interest that we are investigating and trying to piece it all together and see if these cases have a common denominator,” he added.

He said people should get a good description of the person passing the bill and try to get a vehicle description, license plate number or surveillance footage to identify the person passing the counterfeit bills.