Sunday, March 16, 2008

Counterfeiters Caught Passing Phony Bills at Riverbank Target

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Police: Counterfeiters Caught Passing Phony Bills at Riverbank Target
Written by Elizabeth Bishop, Senior Internet News Producer

Valerie Craven

Clay Roberts

Michael Keys

RIVERBANK, CA - Three Riverbank residents have been arrested for allegedly printing and passing phony $100 bills.

Valerie Craven, Clay Roberts and Michael Keys, all in their 50s, were arrested Thursday, according to Mark Copeland with the Stanislaus County Sheriff's Department.

Sheriff's investigators said the bills were passed at the Target store in Riverbank where Craven was a clerk. On three occasions, Roberts, who is Craven's boyfriend, bought items with the fake $100 bills and paid for them at Craven's counter, Copeland said. Craven also paid off a Target credit card with fake $100 bills, according to Copeland. Investigators said they used store video to help track the counterfeit money back to Craven and Roberts.

Copeland said a close look at the counterfeit bills showed they were not the real thing. "They have a different texture and the color's off," he said. "The borders are blurrier because they're photocopying it."

Copeland said another tipoff was the fact that many of the bills had the same serial number on them because they'd been photocopied from the same real $100 bill.

Friday, investigators put on display items they seized, including as much as $30,000 worth of phony $100 bills, a computer, printers, ink, and cutters.

9 comments:

Shelley said...

this is not too bad, it is common to hear that people counterfeit $100, the interesting one was about a man who lived for 20 years counterfeiting $1 bill. that is amazing how much we dont give the dollar much value. there is talk of the 5 and the 10 dollar, but rarely do dollar bills get counterfieted. i bow down to that man, for fooling all those people for twenty years

Saba Arastu said...

i actually think the opposite. I would think that people would be more afraid and hesitant to counterfeit a $100 bill vs counterfeiting a $1 bill because the repercussions I would imagine would be greater, well at least I think that the repercussions would be greater because you're counterfeiting more money in a sense even though it is fake

Chris Gutierrez said...

Wow, I really like this article. The lure of money can be so tempting that people are willing to do almost anything to possess it. Even if that means making fake money!!! Looks like these people will have something to think about in jail.

nick.r said...

After having done my part of our group research on counterfeiting, now I find it amusing how dumb people get with the large denominations they counterfeit. With all the complicated anti-counterfeiting features in these large bills, it leaves little room for clerks to "unknowingly" accept fakes. Let alone fakes that are blatantly crude (too large, blurry, etc). I guess these "crooks" don't look too bright anyway, so exploiting their accomplice's cashier job seemed like an easy job. Guess not.

Anonymous said...

There is an episode of Family Matter where Steve Urkel makes a cloning machine.

Uncle Carl wishes to clone money-- is that counterfeiting?

That bill is the same bill and paper as the original-- which would mean it would have the same value backed by the government.

The difference-- now there are the same bills with same serial numbers---?

I don't know-- just asking a question.

Susie said...

Imagine if thousands of people were counterfeiting money to pay of thier mortgages and thier credit cards. Wow! Then we would be in really big trouble!

Anonymous said...

haha this is so funny. just the other week i saw a guy get caught at TJs for doing the same thing. the casher noticed that the 100s were fake and called the cops. i was lessoning to their conversation and they were talking about how good the bills were and that he might have never been caught. outside they were counting like his whole suitcase that was filled with these fake bills. not something you see everyday, i almost wanted to interview him, but i thought that would be a bad idea with the cops there and all.

Kalpan said...

This is quite possibly one of the dumbest things a person could do. How could you be smart enough to understand how to counterfeit $100 bills yet not be smart enough to understand that by going to a place not once or twice, but three times and not be expected to get caught. I guess that's how the criminal mind works I guess.

Ali said...

This reminds me of work at the bank. We get counterfits all the time and when we have to tell the individual they are never to happy :-P. I think if they can pass it of, it is creativity, similar to Boggs (just without the frantic, strange, artistic tendancies). It is really easy to catch a counterfeit nowadays, if one slips through it is the fault of the merchant.