As the holiday shopping rush gets underway, South Bend Police are warning retailers to watch out for counterfeit $100 bills.
Captain Phil Trent says five bogus bills have been used at two different South Bend Wal-Mart stores in the past few weeks. And spotting the fake money is proving more difficult than usual.
Trent says cashiers using the traditional pen test to try to detect the fake bills will be fooled.
That's because the culprits are taking five-dollar bills, washing off the ink and then printing fake $100 bills in their place. Since the pens only detect if the paper is the right kind, the bills will appear legitimate.
Instead, police say workers should hold the bills up to the light. If they are real, they will see Benjamin Franklin's face, not Abraham Lincoln's.
