Riley County Police are warning businesses to stay vigilant after receiving two reports of counterfeit hundred-dollar bills this month at local businesses. 

“The cases appear to be connected, as the serial numbers on the bills match,” RCPD said via a Facebook post. 

Daryl Ascher, RCPD officer for community engagement, said the department identified a suspect, but the investigation is ongoing. 

“We will try to work with our local county attorney’s office and we will present an affidavit to attempt to get an arrest warrant for the subject, and then eventually … have the county attorney’s office bring him up on charges,” Ascher said.

Ascher said use of counterfeit bills is not a victimless crime — theft using this method can create a domino effect. 

“A lot of times if people utilize counterfeit bills, when they exchange it for property, not only is that bill being put into the circulating system, others may become victims because if they collect that bill as change then they redistribute it back out and then you have multiple thefts at multiple places,” Ascher said. “That counterfeit bill is then put into our exchange system and can continue to spread throughout not just local, but affect statewide and then nationwide.”

Counterfeit bills often “have a waxy texture” and can pass traditional counterfeit testing methods, according to RCPD’s Facebook post. The bills used in the two recent incidents were “of an older design that lacks current security features.”

“I also tell people to look at the entire bill,” Ascher said. “One of the scams that we routinely see for counterfeit bills are they will use play money. Basically when you turn the denomination over, on the back of it it will say that this is not for U.S. currency, or it’ll say for movie sets or props.”

Ascher encourages those who believe they have received a counterfeit bill to report it to RCPD, and said accidental use of a counterfeit bill is not grounds for legal action. 

“We’re looking to identify who the person is that distributed or manufactured the bill, or someone that’s looking to defraud the business by not purchasing the item but using the counterfeit bill,” Ascher said. “We try to work with somebody when they come to us and say, ‘Look, I had no idea that this was a counterfeit bill.’ We would then start our investigation by back-tracking.”

RCPD urges those with information regarding the use of counterfeit bills to contact Crime Stoppers.