How to spot counterfeit money

Warning from the Yuma Police Department to be careful of counterfeit money. As a recent post circulating the internet about fake money is now concerning local residents.

Most recently, YPD has seen cases where fake training money made in China is being passed around as real American dollars. Unfortunately counterfeit money has been around for decades and while you may think you could spot a real dollar from a fake one, you may be surprised.

We often get so caught up in life that inspecting the cash we get is the last thing on our minds. YPD warns that these fake notes are widely available for sale on websites such as eBay both from China and from the U.S.

“Over the past six months, we’ve taken a few reports referencing Chinese training money. In other words it looks just like American money, but it does have a stamp on there in Chinese writing that does say it’s not for monetary use. The feel of the paper, looking for the little threads in there. There’s a lot of little things, but you can go to the U.S. treasury website and they will tell you what to look for. The water marks, the strip that’s down the center of the bills,” says Sgt. Lori Frankiln, YPD.

The first thing you should do if you believe you’ve received fake money is call your local law enforcement and visit https://www.uscurrency.gov/