Lehi Police ask for help finding woman accused of using counterfeit money

LEHI – The public and police agencies from all over the state are being asked to help find a woman who is accused of using funny money in Lehi.  Police are hoping to find out if she may have passing counterfeit bills in other parts of the state.

The woman was reportedly seen spending the fake money at the Smith’s Marketplace in Lehi this week.

Investigators say the employees had their suspicions that the money wasn’t real, so they took it to a bank and confirmed it was counterfeit.

Police Sergeant Chad Ray says cashiers are trained on how to look for fake bills, however, “A lot of times, cashiers are so busy, they look up and there are ten people in line, they’re trying to do the best they can to spot the fake ones, but, sometimes, some of them just slip through,” he says.

Some of the most obvious ways to spot a counterfeit bill are to spot a stripe or a watermark in the bill.  Plus, there’s another trick you should know.

“If people pay with multiple bills, you can look for the serial numbers.  Just to save time for [the counterfeiters] as they’re making them, they’re all going to be the same serial number,” he says.

Lehi Police sent the photo of the woman to every police department in the state.  They want to know if this case is connected to another reported case of counterfeiting in Ogden.

Ray says, “We’re definitely interested in any connection to any city in the state that has the same type of issue going on.”

The last time there was a case of counterfeiting in Lehi, Ray says they asked the Secret Service to advise them on what to do.

“If we have the same person, and they’re going through the whole state, maybe multiple states, then the Secret Service would want to be involved in that,” Ray says.