CHILLICOTHE – Police seized a counterfeit 20 dollar bill trying to be passed at a local gas station, the owner of the bill says he got it from a facebook transaction.
According to Chillicothe police a 20 dollar bill was attempted to be passed to a cashier at the Valero on 228 N. Bridge St on 2/1/20. The cashier after using the currency pen alerted the police of the fake bill. When local police arrived to check the bill the officer noted that the bill was unlike most of the counterfeit currency they see. The bill was void of any Chinese writing which is the common online sold bill, but he did notice there was no water marks and the bill did not have even edge lines.
Due to the increasing availability and quality of desktop publishing software and printer/scanner technology, the US Treasury department introduced a re-designed twenty dollar bill in an attempt to thwart counterfeiting. The bill features many high tech security features that are extremely difficult or impossible to reproduce using commonly available publishing technology. 1. Microprinting under the border to the left of Andrew Jackson’s portrait says “THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 20 USA 20 USA” 2. Microprinting around the first three letters of each line to the left of the Treasury Department seal repeats “20 USA” 3. A watermark embedded into the paper the bill is printed on depicts a portrait of Andrew Jackson that is identical to the one printed on the face of the bill. 4. The 20 on the bottom left of the front of the bill is printed using color-shifting metallic flecks. Changing the angle at which the bill is held will change the apparent color of the printing from gold to green. Additionally, the eagle and shield image is printed with an embossed sparkly ink. 5. A mylar security thread runs vertically 17mm from the edge of the paper. This strip will glow green when exposed to UV light and has the microprinting of “USA TWENTY” along with a US Flag. Instead of stars, the miniature flag has the number 20 printed. 6. The bill is printed using an engraving process that is able to reproduce extremely fine lines (first image). When the bill is printed using a commercial inkjet (second image) or laser printer (third image) the fine lines are obscured and colored ink spray is clearly visible under high magnification. The images were taken at 100x magnification. 7. The back of the bill is printed with two types of optically indistinguishable ink. Under infrared light (second image), a vertical strip of printing on the left side of the note disappears. The inks used to create the bills also have varying magnetic properties. These two features are extremely diff
Police contacted the man who tried to pass the 20 dollar counterfeit bill and he told police that he had received the bill earlier in the early morning hours when he sold a telephone. He stated that the had sold the phone to a male at Valero Bridge and Second.
No charges went against the man at this time during the initial interview process.
Other reports of fake 20 dollars bills came into question on the same day when police arrested and charged Robert Faber and Brittany Lusk for Counterfeiting while trying to pass the fake bills at a local salvation army.
When police were notified of the attempt to pass the forgery bills Robert Faber ran from police but was later apprehended. Police found several of the counterfeit bills in their possession.
All three bills had the same serial number ND63186594B and felt like regular paper.
Police were able to investigate further and found that the same individual Brittany Lusk had passed a fake bill at the local flea market and received 18 dollars in change, another vendor at the market had noticed the bills and turned her away.
Brittany and Robert had a court date on 2/3/20 at 9:00 am.
