Passing Counterfeit Money

Public Safety

Counterfeit $50 Bills Passed at Two Downtown Businesses

By David Gurliacci | December 6, 2017

Two downtown Darien businesses received fake $50 bills as payment from three men on Thursday, Nov. 30. Darien police described what happened with this account:

The three men went to Gofer Ice Cream at 1020 Post Road and each used a fake bill to pay for ice cream costing less than $6 each. The change for those three transactions would  total $132 — a loss for the store on top of the loss of the ice cream. The Darien police news release didn’t say what time the three men visited or give a description of any of the men other than to note their ethnicity.

Public Safety

Counterfeit Bill Passed at Bertucci’s

By David Gurliacci | February 1, 2017

A patron with two young children at Bertucci’s restaurant gave a waiter a phony $50 bill to pay for a $27 meal on Saturday, Jan. 28, and an employee later spotted the bill as fake. It isn’t known whether or not the man knew the bill was fake. The patron is described as a man with blond hair, about six feet in height with a thin build and appearing to be in his mid-30s. He was with two chidren under 10 years old and gave the bill to the waiter at about 6:45 p.m.

By 10:10 p.m., a restaurant employee recognized the bill as fake and called police.

Public Safety

Counterfeit $100 Bills Presented at Three Stores on Tokeneke Road

By David Gurliacci | April 6, 2016

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.

Public Safety

27 Phony $20 Bills Passed at Darien Supermarket

By David Gurliacci | July 30, 2015

Two men who police think are part of a counterfeiting ring in the New York metropolitan area passed a total of 27 phony $20 bills (amounting to $540) at Stop & Shop in the Goodwives Shopping Center. The incident happened on Tuesday, July 21, but wasn’t noticed until later, when store security personnel were notified by a bank that the counterfeit bills were in the store’s money deposit. Police were informed on July 24. Security staff reviewed video surveillance records for July 21 at the store at 25 Old King’s Hwy. N. They saw two males enter the store, the first one at about 1:21 p.m., and saw each buy various small items along with $200 and $300 prepaid Mastercard gift cards.