ROCKLEDGE, FL -- Secret Service agents are searching for unknown suspects who are passing counterfeit bills at various Brevard County businesses.
For the past three months scammers have been victimizing stores within the same Rockledge shopping center. Store owners did not learn they were duped until they tried to deposit the "funny money" at the bank.
The crooks are buying items with the fake currency and getting real bills as change.
"They're coming in, making small purchases to get their money exchanged out," Michael Cadore of the Rockledge Police Department said.
The problem is the paper the suspects are using is real money.
The thieves are changing the amount by adding a zero to $5 bills to make it look like a $50 bill. When an employee uses a counterfeit pen to check the bill, the money still turns yellow fooling the cashier.
"That strip right there, you got to be able to read 50 USA dollars," clerk Deanna Smith said.
Smith now double checks every bill at the True Value Hardware store she works at after a counterfeiter slipped her a fake $100 bill.
"When you're counting money really fast, not flipping them all over. Of course, I learned to after that," she said.
The issue of counterfeit money is not exclusive to Rockledge.
Secret Service agents are confiscating more than $30,000 in fake money each week in Central Florida, which includes Tampa and St. Petersburg. Half of the illegal bills are made locally on home computers.
It is illegal to possess a counterfeit bill and agents say you could contact the police as soon as your realize you have one.
