An area counterfeiting operation turned real $5 bills into $50 and $100 bills using digital printers and a readily available bleaching agent.

Thus far three people have pleaded guilty to charges in the scheme that involved making phony bills good enough to fool merchants using counterfeit bill detection pens. It began in March 2012 and ended this summer.

The counterfeiting procedure was described in detail in an affidavit Halin filed in September.

The counterfeiters start with real $5 bills printed between 1996 and 2006 with Lincoln's portrait and a watermark of Lincoln's face.

They apply "Purple Power" cleaner on the $5 bills, heat them in a microwave, scrub the ink off with a toothbrush, dry them with a hair dryer, and then tape them to separate sheets of copy paper.

The sheets are fed into a multifunction printer and scanner machine. A genuine $50 or $100 bill is scanned and each side is then copied onto the bleached bill, making a counterfeit bill. The counterfeits are placed inside a book or magazine to flatten them.

Portraits of Ulysses S. Grant and Benjamin Franklin with watermarks closely resembling their portraits appear on genuine $50 and $100 bills, respectively.

Though bleaching removes the original ink, the Lincoln watermark remains on the bills, which are passed with the hope that merchants do not inspect the watermark closely to see if it is a Grant or Franklin portrait instead of Lincoln's.

Because the fake bills are made with real U.S. currency paper - 75 percent cotton and 25 percent linen with small, randomly dispersed red and blue security fibers - they have the look and feel of real bills.

To read the complete article, see:Richmond-area counterfeiting scheme turned $5 bills into $50s(articles.dailypress.com/2013-12-09/news/dp-wire-counterfeiting-scheme-1209-20131209_1_phony-bills-real-bills-watermark)