San Juan Bautista
– A Hollister man drinking at a Mission City saloon was arrested
for felony fraud Saturday after San Benito County Sheriff’s
deputies found that he had 16 $20 bills that they suspect to be
counterfeit.
San Juan Bautista – A Hollister man drinking at a Mission City saloon was arrested for felony fraud Saturday after San Benito County Sheriff’s deputies found that he had 16 $20 bills that they suspect to be counterfeit.
Gregorio Vasquez, 36, was arrested for 16 counts of possession of forged notes, a felony, and a single count of misdemeanor passing a forged note. He was arrested after a bartender at Daisy’s Saloon in San Juan Bautista showed a $20 bill, “that didn’t feel right,” to a San Benito County Sheriff’s deputy conducting a routine bar check, Sheriff’s Lt. Roy Iler said.
The deputy confirmed the bill was fake after marking it with a counterfeit currency pen, which contains chemicals that change color when marked on a fraudulent bill, Iler said. After searching Vasquez, deputies found 15 other counterfeit $20 bills. The bills, totaling $320, were sent to officials with the United States Secret Service at the Department of Treasury in San Jose, Iler said.
After decades of suppression, instances of counterfeiting are on the rise, according to the counterfeit division of the U.S. Secret Service. Modern photographic and printing technologies are fueling the trend, the agency reports. Though counterfeit bills are often eventually weeded out of the system by banks, it is often too late for the business that accepted the bill to recoup its loss, according to Iler, adding that local law enforcement is also seeing more counterfeit money.
“We have noticed a lot more cases like this in the last year,” Iler said. “Banks usually catch these types of bills, but by then its usually too late. The business is out the money and often can’t remember who the bill came from.”
Iler said the easiest way to detect counterfeit currency is to mark all bills with the special pens or to check for built-in security measures, such as watermarks.
Vasquez told Sheriff’s deputies that he got the bills from a check cashing business in Gilroy, Iler said. Sheriff’s detectives will investigate Vasquez’s claim further by talking with officials at the check cashing business, but said any subsequent investigation would be handled by the Secret Service.
Vasquez is being held at the San Benito County Jail in lieu of $150,000 bail, according to jail officials. If convicted of a single count of possession of a forged note, he could face up to three years in state prison, according to the California Penal Code.
Brett Rowland covers public safety for the Free Lance. He can be reached at 831-637-5566 ext. 330 or br******@fr***********.com.
