Bogus Bills Causing Concerns In Winston County

WINSTON COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – Some bogus bills are causing concern in Winston County.

On Friday, a man tried to pass counterfeit fifty and one-hundred dollar bills at area businesses.

Luckily, two of the stores caught it before taking it, but one man selling local produce didn’t.

One store, where the man tried to use the fake cash, caught the transaction on its surveillance system.

That’s what investigators are using to gather information on the ‘funny money man.’

Right now, they’re working to track him down.

This is the man Winston County Deputies believe is trying to pass fake cash at local stores.

This video was captured at Louisville Package Store.

It shows this man in the red, giving store manager, Brian Stewart, money.

“He handed me the $100 bill and he still had it in a little bank sleeve, you know, like you get money from the bank. When he handed it to me, I looked at it and said, ‘That doesn’t look right.’ And he said, ‘Well, I just got it from the bank a little while ago. I’m going to go back to the bank.’ Then, he left.”

Stewart’s counterfeit pen confirmed his suspicions.

“On the money, it turns a real light yellow, but then if it’s on paper, it turns a dark brown, black color.”

“I would feel that he has probably came in from out of town to do this and he’s probably going around to other towns doing the same thing. That would be my guess. He had a very good routine. He appeared to have done it before, from what we’ve been told by store owners,” says Winston County Sheriff Jason Pugh.

So, why would someone from out of town target this area?

“I would feel like that this gentleman probably feels like it’s easier to come to a community like Louisville, Winston County, then to possibly go to Jackson, or somewhere like that. That it would be an easier target here, but to be honest with you, when you run a small store, to lose $100 is a lot of your profit for the day.”

As soon as the man left, Stewart called the sheriff to let him know about the situation.

Sheriff Jason Pugh says Stewart did all the right things in this case, and encourages others to be more cautious about things like this.

“What you get into a lot with your smaller businesses, is there’s not that many people there in the store at any given time, so that store owner can take a little more time to check that bill to make sure it’s good.”

Stewart says every business needs counterfeit marker pens and should mark every bill that comes through the door.

If you have any information on the person of interest, call the Winston County Sheriff’s Department.