SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. — Seminole County deputies said they are investigating after a duo went door-to-door at a strip mall Tuesday, paying for various inexpensive items with fake $50 bills and pocketing real change.
At least five businesses, including a bar, a pizza parlor, a hair salon, a pet store, and a smoke shop were targeted. Employees at each of those stores said the woman, who gave her name as “Savannah” to the pizza parlor, spent only a few minutes at each business, paying and exiting as quickly as she could.
The woman -- and a man who waited outside for her -- might have gotten away with it unnoticed had an employee at the bar not questioned why she hadn’t returned to pick up the mozzarella sticks she paid for.
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“[A coworker] returned from the back and she was like, ‘May I see that $50 bill? I think that maybe it’s counterfeit,’” the cashier, who asked to not be identified, recalled.
The marking pen that was used to identify fake cash had determined the bill to be authentic, but a banker sitting at the bar noticed there were several things wrong with it.
“There were no watermarks on it,” the cashier explained. “When you did hold it up to the light, and we compared it to another [$50 bill], you could definitely see the differences for sure.”
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Thanks to their quick thinking, the owner of the bar was able to pull security camera video of the duo and called deputies.
The owner said detectives told him they’d gotten other calls about counterfeit cash in the area recently, but no one was able to come up with a picture of the customers who passed it off. The bar video was their first breakthrough.
“First I was not going to do anything,” the bar owner said. “I’m like, ‘Oh, well, it’s $50, let it go,’ but when they’re hitting almost every business, God knows how much money they’re making a week.”
He said deputies had told him they believed the pair was connected to an organized crime network, which is why he also asked for his name to be withheld from this report.
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WFTV was able to examine a fake $10 bill left at a neighboring Boost Mobile store last week that employees said resembled the quality of the fake $50s. At first glance, the bill appeared to be unremarkable.
A closer inspection showed the texture of the bill was off, as if the bill was older. The portrait of Hamilton was darker, and the ink was less crisp, especially around the yellow security markings. The ink was also flat on the paper, rather than having the slight texture genuine bills have.
Employees at multiple businesses said the fake $50 was also slightly shorter than a real bill.
Seminole County deputies supplied the police report prompted by the bar’s call and confirmed an investigation was underway but wouldn’t confirm any details.
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“We are investigating multiple cases in that area… Certain aspects of the investigation we are not able to confirm at this time,” spokesman Bob Kealing said. “We are actively following leads.”
They also wouldn’t confirm if the Secret Service had been called, which is the agency that typically investigates counterfeit cash.
The bar owner said he hoped his video would help put those involved in making the fake money in prison.
“It’s kind of disappointing that they’re going around -- and businesses are struggling as it is -- and they’re going at all and just ripping all these businesses off,” he said
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