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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Thursday, November 27, 2003

Holidays also busy for counterfeiters

By Peter Boylan
Advertiser Staff Writer

Police are preparing for a rise in the amount of fake money circulating through local cash registers this holiday season, a trend underscored by the arrest of a Roosevelt High School teenager Tuesday in connection with the appearance of three bogus $5 bills on campus.

Crimes of counterfeiting

• The Honolulu Police Department investigates up to 400 cases per month.

• Crooks usually counterfeit $20 and $100 bills.

• The U.S. Secret Service seizes about $3,000 in counterfeit cash each month in Hawai'i.

Police are not only urging merchants and consumers to watch for counterfeit cash, but also to be wary of other forms of fraud, from the passage of bad checks to the use of stolen credit cards. Tomorrow kicks off the Christmas shopping season.

"Leading up to the Christmas period, we are going to start getting busy with all types of fraud," said Lt. Pat Tomasu, head of the Honolulu Police Department's Financial Fraud Unit.

Tomasu said her detail investigates 275 to 400 fraud cases each month, but that increases during the holiday season because the high volume of commerce allows greater opportunity to commit fraud, especially when it comes to passing fake bills.

"The safeguards may go down at stores, with all the cash, credit cards and checks going through the system," Tomasu said. "The opportunity to move fake bills is high because they won't be detected quickly."

Tomasu said crooks mostly counterfeit $20 and $100 bills.

Any fake money confiscated immediately involves the U.S. Secret Service, which must confirm the money is fake before an investigation can continue. The service then provides documented proof for prosecutors. If the amount is significant, federal charges are filed.

Albert Joaquin, special agent in charge of the U.S. Secret Service in Hawai'i, said the state does not have a counterfeit problem on the scale of a city the size of Los Angeles. No cases involving counterfeit money have gone to trial here in several years, he said, because most offenders accept plea agreements.

"We see a slight increase during the holiday season, but Hawai'i is unique — we don't have a major counterfeit problem," Joaquin said.

According to the U.S. Secret Service, almost $3,000 in counterfeit cash is seized in the state each month.

Joaquin said most fake bills are printed on computers and reproduced with high-quality printers and photo copiers, with minor enhancements added later. He said the Secret Service actively trains local merchants' associations and HPD officers in the latest detection and protection methods.

The most widely employed method, Joaquin said, is the iodine pen.

Real money is printed on paper that is nearly 100 percent cotton, while most fake money is printed on low-grade paper with a high concentration of wood pulp. If a merchant swipes an iodine pen across a set of bills and a dark brown stain appears, the bill is most likely counterfeit.

Tomasu said the test is subject to false positives, and that older bills and foreign substances rubbing off on the bill may create the brown mark.

Joaquin said innovations in the printing of new money, such as the multi-hued $20 bill, make them harder to copy.

On Tuesday, police arrested a 16-year-old Roosevelt High School student on suspicion of first-degree forgery after authorities said he tried to buy his lunch Monday with a fake $5 bill.

A total of three fake $5 bills have appeared on campus since Friday, police said.

Two other students turned in fake bills to the school but were not arrested. The school was alerted to the problem last month, when a counterfeit $5 bill appeared in a deposit of petty cash made at the school's bank, police said.

Police are still investigating.

Reach Peter Boylan at 535-8110 or pboylan@honoluluadvertiser.com.