Richmond

An area counterfeiting operation turned real $5 bills into $50 and $100 bills using digital printers and a readily available bleaching agent.

Thus far three people have pleaded guilty to charges in the scheme that involved making phony bills good enough to fool merchants using counterfeit bill detection pens. It began in March 2012 and ended this summer.

Marks from the pens turn amber or yellow if the bill is real, while black suggests it is not. The bleached counterfeit bills could pass the pen test because they were printed on real U.S. currency paper.

The U.S. Secret Service's headquarters in Washington referred questions to the Richmond office, which did not respond to requests for comment last week.

It is not known if this was the first such bleaching and counterfeiting operation in this area. According to media accounts, the technique has been used in other parts of the country.

In a bail hearing for one of the defendants before U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson last month, Matthew Halin, a special agent with the Secret Service, said about $15,000 in counterfeit money was produced.

The counterfeiting procedure was described in detail in an affidavit Halin filed in September.

The counterfeiters start with real $5 bills printed between 1996 and 2006 with Lincoln's portrait and a watermark of Lincoln's face.

They apply "Purple Power" cleaner on the $5 bills, heat them in a microwave, scrub the ink off with a toothbrush, dry them with a hair dryer, and then tape them to separate sheets of copy paper.

The sheets are fed into a multifunction printer and scanner machine. A genuine $50 or $100 bill is scanned and each side is then copied onto the bleached bill, making a counterfeit bill. The counterfeits are placed inside a book or magazine to flatten them.

Portraits of Ulysses S. Grant and Benjamin Franklin with watermarks closely resembling their portraits appear on genuine $50 and $100 bills, respectively.

Though bleaching removes the original ink, the Lincoln watermark remains on the bills, which are passed with the hope that merchants do not inspect the watermark closely to see if it is a Grant or Franklin portrait instead of Lincoln's.

Because the fake bills are made with real U.S. currency paper – 75 percent cotton and 25 percent linen with small, randomly dispersed red and blue security fibers – they have the look and feel of real bills.

The Secret Service said such counterfeiting also can be done using $1 bills bearing George Washington's portrait.

According to Halin's affidavit, in April 2012 the conspirators passed several thousand dollars’ worth of counterfeit $50 and $100 bills at Richmond International Raceway.

On Christmas Eve 2012, two bleached $50 counterfeit bills and two bleached $100 bills were passed at the Justice Clothing store on Brook Road in Glen Allen. Other bills were passed at South Park Mall, the Shops at White Oak Village and stores in Blackstone.

Halin said the investigation began in October 2012 when a confidential source told him about counterfeiting activity in Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee.

The affidavit alleges that Tarshema Antionette Brice, a Richmond resident whose age was not available, had been making counterfeit bills from March 2012 through August of this year, giving the fake bills to four other people and teaching them how to make them.

The investigation was conducted with the help of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; police in Colonial Heights, Richmond and Blackstone; and police in Chesterfield and Henrico counties.

Brice and defendant La’Keesha Nicole Kee, whose age and address were unavailable, have yet to be tried.

Norris Eugene Heath, whose age and address were unavailable, pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to counterfeit U.S. currency and passing counterfeit bills. Warren Kelly Isaacs, whose age and address were not available, pleaded guilty to passing counterfeit money.

Abraham Emanuel Brotherson, a Highland Springs resident whose age was not available, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting in the manufacturing of counterfeit money. He admitted providing a location for the counterfeiters to produce the fake bills and other assistance.

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