A husband and wife from Albert Lea, Minn., have been sentenced in federal court in Minneapolis for participating in a counterfeiting ring that duped businesses from the Twin Cities to Iowa into taking thousands of dollars in bogus currency.

Travis and Heather Cameron were each sentenced Tuesday to a year in prison. Four other defendants, all from southern Minnesota, were sentenced last month. Their punishments ranged from probation to more than three years in prison.

In her guilty plea, Heather Cameron, 34, admitted that from late 2010 until June 2011, she chemically washed $5 bills and reprinted them as $100s, then spent the bills. Travis Cameron, 31, admitted producing altered bills and selling them for 50 cents on the dollar.

Authorities said the bills were altered by washing legal currency with oven cleaner, then using a color printer to make higher-valued cash.

"The defendants in this case were relatively sophisticated in their means of counterfeiting U.S. currency," said Louis Stephens, in charge of the local office of the U.S. Secret Service. "They used a process commonly referred to as 'bleaching notes.' While this process consumes time and requires some expertise, it enables the counterfeiters to print fake Federal Reserve notes on genuine currency paper, which increases the likelihood that it will be successfully passed."

PAUL WALSH