Counterfeit $100 bills found in Ozark County

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Photos: Ozark County Times

Multiple counterfeit $100 bills have been found across Ozark County, Sheriff Darrin Reed confirmed this week.

The Ozark County Times reports six of the bills, with pink and white Chinese symbols on the front and back, were reportedly found in Pontiac and turned in to Century Bank of the Ozarks.

On a post made regarding the counterfeit money on the Ozark County Times Facebook page, residents commented they had found others in Gainesville, including one on the ground at a Gainesville convenience store parking lot and on the ground near the Missouri-Arkansas state line.

News stories have been published across the country about bills featuring similar markings. One article from The Modesto (California) Bee website, shows bills with identical markings as the Ozark County counterfeits. The Modesto Bee article says the Chinese writing on the bills can be translated as “”not to be used as real currency” and “bill to be used for counting practice.””

Bills such as these are reportedly used by Chinese banks for training purposes only, according to the article, and can be purchased inexpensively online. Most of the time they are legal to buy for their designated purpose. However, it is a crime to use the bills as US currency.

Although the bills recently found in Ozark County are easy to pick out as fakes, some counterfeit bills are harder to spot. The US Federal Reserve says the best way to determine if a bill is genuine is to rely on the security features such as the watermark and security thread visible inside the bill when it’s held to the light. The Federal Reserve says counterfeit-detection pens are not always accurate and may give false results.

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