Printer and bleach used by group to turn $1 bills into fake $100 bills, feds say
A group of people accused of traveling from North Carolina to West Virginia to spend counterfeit cash at businesses used bleach to scrub ink off real $1 bills, federal prosecutors said.
Then, they’re accused of trying to turn the blank Federal Reserve notes into fake $100 bills.
Now, a 24-year-old man of Charlotte, North Carolina, has pleaded guilty in the case after two other group members pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to commit an offense against the U.S. on Oct. 13, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of West Virginia.
On Oct. 12, 2022, the Charlotte man, the two others and a minor spent fake $100 bills at restaurants and gas stations in West Virginia, then tried to create more counterfeit currency at a hotel room in Summersville, about 65 miles southeast of Charleston, that evening, according to court documents.
When the group arrived at the hotel room, they put 40 $1 bills in a trash can and let the bills soak in a Purple Power cleaning solution, according to a stipulation of facts attached to a group member’s plea agreement.
Then group members placed them in a microwave, court documents say, McClatchy News previously reported.
Part of the group’s next step in its plan “included scanning and reprinting a genuine $100 bill onto the altered $1 bills,” the plea agreement says.
Inside their hotel room was a printer, a scanner, an empty bottle of Purple Power, double-sided tape, copy paper and “other tools needed to create counterfeit Federal Reserve notes,” an indictment says.
On Nov. 9, the Charlotte man pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to commit an offense against the U.S., the attorney’s office announced in a news release that day.
McClatchy News contacted a federal public defender representing the man and attorneys representing his the other two group members for comment on Nov. 13 and didn’t receive an immediate response.
The minor involved in the group’s scheme is not named as a defendant in the case, according to the indictment.
The Charlotte man’s sentencing is scheduled for March 22, prosecutors said.
He is facing up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine and may be ordered to pay at least $400 in restitution, according to prosecutors.
The two other group members will be sentenced on Jan. 26, prosecutors said, McClatchy News previously reported.
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