A woman went from store to store on Tokeneke Road last Friday, handing clerks phony $100 bills she tried to use to pay for items, police said. She was successful at one store.
The woman — described as a Hispanic female with large black hair and wearing a red top and black pants — left the stores and got into a gold-colored Honda Civic with Connecticut license plates, Darien police were told.
Police gave this account of the incidents:
At about 4:30 p.m., the woman went into the Johnny’s Records store at 45 Tokeneke Road and bought two bottles of Grateful Dead brand non-alcoholic wine. She gave the clerk the $100 phony bill and got back $70 in change.
After the woman left, the clerk became suspicious and asked clerks at the SoNo Baking Co. nearby if they had a counterfeit bill. They had, apparently from the same woman.
Police were called, and they spoke with managers, employees or owners of other businesses in the area. At Townhouse Finds + Designs at 37 Tokeneke Road, they were told by an employee that the woman fitting the description of the suspect tried to buy a $14 book with a $100 bill, but the clerk became suspicious and told the woman she didn’t have change for that high a bill.
Darien Police typically will refer reports of people passing counterfeit money to the U.S. Secret Service, a police spokesman said.
Here’s a U.S. Secret Service Web page on how to spot counterfeit money.