Three suspected of trying to pass bad bills arrested in Bellevue

The money spread across the table at Bellevue City Hall on Thursday looked like $50 bills, with a picture of President Grant on the front.

But they really were $5 bills and were supposed to display an image of President Lincoln.

They were counterfeits, picked up by the Bellevue Police Department at Bellevue Square, where three people were arrested on suspicion of trying to pass bad bills totaling more than $3,000. The Secret Service is also investigating.

"This is one of the more sophisticated cases I've seen," said Bellevue police Detective Gary Forrest. "This is good-quality stuff."

The suspects are two 22-year-old women with addresses in Cashmere, Chelan County, and a 27-year-old man from East Wenatchee.

What led police to the money about 1 p.m. Tuesday was a clerk at the mall who thought one of the bills felt a little sticky. The clerk called mall security, who called police.

Officers followed the three suspects through the mall until they were together, then made the arrests.

What investigators found, Forrest said, was an operation that started over the weekend in Everett, where police say the suspects produced the phony money in a hotel room.

They then went to stores in Everett, Lynnwood, Seattle and Bellevue Square, and were planning to go to Southcenter, Forrest said.

At the shops, including five at Bellevue Square, they usually made small purchases.

Forrest said the counterfeiters bleached $5 bills and used a computer to print scanned images of $50 bills over them, he said.

On one of the bills, the faint image of the original $5 marking still was visible.

By printing over the smaller-denomination bill, the counterfeiters were able to use the material of real money and leave the watermark and other security features intact, said Officer Greg Grannis, police public-information officer, although the watermark and security markings were those of $5 bills, not $50 bills.

Another clue was that all the bills had the same serial number from the scanned image: CB44346475 A.

Grannis suggested that anyone with a $50 bill with that number should contact local law-enforcement, partly to help track the trail of the counterfeiters, and also possibly to recover their losses.

Two of the suspects were released after authorities identified them, Grannis said.

The alleged ringleader, Amanda Laine Bryant, was being held in the King County Jail in lieu of $15,001 bail.

Public records show she has more than a dozen arrests and convictions in Eastern Washington dating to 2002 for such offenses as drug possession, theft and forgery.

She most recently was charged in Yakima County in September with identity theft; a trial date of April 30 has been set.

The other two suspects aren't being identified by The Seattle Times because they have not been charged.

Peyton Whitely: 206-464-2259 or pwhitely@seattletimes.com