Police evidence room resembles bank vault

TWIN FALLS, Idaho – The Twin Falls Police Department has nearly $1 billion in phony $1 million bills locked up in its evidence room.

“It would have been remarkable if anyone would have accepted them as legitimate,” interim Police Chief Jim Munn said Friday. “This is just absolutely comical.”

Police seized 999 of the bills, just one bill short of $1 billion, after a Buhl man tried to deposit them at a local bank as collateral for a loan.

Police have not released the names of people involved in the case.

“The bank called immediately to say what they’d been presented with,” said Detective Sgt. David Heidemann. After an investigation, police found more of the bills. Munn said he was taking the matter seriously.

“People could lose money – someone might still accept this as legitimate tender,” Munn told the Times-News newspaper of Twin Falls. “Hopefully there’s no more of them running around the community.”

The matter is still being investigated by the U.S. Secret Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, police said.

Heidemann said the bills were made in the United Kingdom, Canada or Nigeria. The money is printed to resemble the larger-size “horse blanket” silver certificate notes that were issued in 1923 sporting the face of George Washington.

“They used a computer to scan out the information and scan in what they wanted,” Heidemann said. “Basically they altered the dollar amounts.”

The bills have a slightly washed-out appearance, but they’re “actually better quality than we normally see on counterfeit notes,” he said.

Munn said someone might try to pawn them off as old collectable money, but “they’re not worth the paper they’re printed on.”