WVVA TV Bluefield Beckley WV News, Weather and SportsMercer County businesses struck with counterfeit cash

Mercer County businesses struck with counterfeit cash

Princeton, W.Va. (WVVA) – Local police are reporting that at least eight businesses in Mercer County have received counterfeit $100 bills over the past week.

The Princeton Police Department says the suspects hit discount stores, gas stations, a grocery store, and they even tried to pass one at a local bank.

According to Sergeant Detective J.W. Howell, the counterfeit bills are some of the best work that he has ever seen.

To throw off even the most alert cashiers, the counterfeiters altered actual $5 bills.

"It's a five dollar bill. They are bleaching the ink off of it, which would leave the hologram and the strip on it, and then they are putting the one hundred dollars on the front and back," explains Sergeant Howell.

If you look closely at the fake money, you can clearly see a hologram of Abraham Lincoln instead of Benjamin Franklin.

So far, police from three different agencies have seized a total of nine fake bills.

Two counterfeit notes were passed as late as Tuesday afternoon.

Police continue to look for suspects in the case but no arrests have been made.