Bush $200 Counterfeit Note (On Drudge)

The Smoking Gun ^ | September 12, 2003

[Bad Dog2]

SEPTEMBER 12--North Carolina cops are searching for a guy who successfully passed a $200 bill bearing George W. Bush's portrait and a drawing of the White House complete with lawn signs reading "We like ice cream" and "USA deserves a tax cut." The phony Bush bill--a copy of which you'll find below--was presented to a cashier at a Food Lion in Roanoke Rapids on September 6 by an unidentified male who was seeking to pay for $150 in groceries. Remarkably, the cashier accepted the counterfeit note and gave the man $50 change. In a separate incident involving a different perp, Roanoke Rapids cops Tuesday arrested Michael Harris, 24, for attempting last month to pass an identical $200 Bush bill at a convenience store.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/graphics/art3/bushbill1.jpg

[Bad Dog2]

I don't believe that this is a counterfeit note as it has many features not found on a real note and is not a real denomination. It is amazing that any one would accept it.

[jaykay]

I don't know what is more incredible, that someone would dare try to pass that or that someone would accept it. I can't break a twenty without the cashier testing it with one of those counterfeit detecting pens. I guess I must look like a crook.

[DonQ]

I have a sneaking suspicion how it passed the cashier: The cashier was buddies with the passer, and figured that, somehow, accepting the phony bill and giving real merchandise and real money in change would somehow be overlooked or forgiven by management - and that nobody would suspect it was a put-up job. It's even possible that there was no customer, but the cashier brought the phony bill, and a story about it, to work to rip off her employer.

A few years ago there was some story about a cashier somewhere who was (it was alleged) stupid enough to accept one of those giant size (6x11) reproductions of a $100 (the kind you can get in a novelty store) and gave real money as change. Supposedly she (I assume it was a she) was silly enough to believe that a large denomination came on large paper, notwithstanding the size of the partitions in the cash drawer. Her employer was understandably annoyed. I wouldn't have been surprised if she got that same giant bill in her pay envelope in lieu of real money as a subtle lesson. But her story is so bizarre that I wonder if she was really fooled by a stranger or if she came up with a really lame way to try to cheat her boss.