Cops clean up ring that faked $100s

The counterfeiting process seemed simple enough, requiring a can of Easy-Off oven cleaner, a color printer and a supply of $5 bills.

Scrub a bill clean, print onto it the image of a $100 bill and you had currency that could pass a security pen test, according to information contained in court documents.

Earlier this year, the counterfeits showed up at businesses near the Interstate Hwy. 35 corridor from the Twin Cities into Iowa, and this week, a federal indictment was unsealed charging eight southern Minnesota residents with passing the phony C-notes. Four were accused of creating and dealing the counterfeits.

The indictment provides no details about the crimes. But in the case of one of those named, Vincent D. Tampio of Faribault, the indictment followed charges in Rice County claiming that he had sold $16,100 worth of counterfeit $100 bills to an undercover agent for $7,130.

Tampio, 33, admitted to authorities that he had taught others how to counterfeit, the Rice County charges state.

Two others in the alleged eight-person ring -- Travis A. Cameron, 31, and Heather A. Cameron, 34, an Albert Lea couple -- also have been accused of selling counterfeit bills to an undercover investigator, Assistant Freeborn County Attorney David Walker said Friday.

Walker, who had been handling the prosecution of Travis and Heather Cameron, said he understood that any state-level charges filed previously against the eight suspects were to be dismissed and superseded by the federal indictment. The eight suspects made their initial U.S. District Court appearances this week.

Walker said the process of chemically washing $5 bills and transforming them into C-notes is not new to Minnesota. In 2009, he said, his office charged a Hastings woman and a South St. Paul man with multiple counterfeiting counts after a fake $100 bill turned up at a Burger King in Albert Lea.

Both suspects pleaded guilty to a counterfeiting charge.

Walker said that washing the ink off a $5 bill and using the same paper again gives a counterfeit $100 bill a similar look and feel, "and in that sense, it's pretty clever."

But while the $100 bills can defeat pen tests, they can be easily revealed as fakes by holding them up to a light and looking for the watermark on the right-hand side, he said. There, one should see a faint picture of the face that also is at the center of the bill, authorities say. If it's that of Abraham Lincoln, it's a counterfeit.

The charges filed earlier against Tampio alleged that he told authorities he had printed counterfeit bills with Travis Cameron once or twice and sold counterfeit bills to Sarah A. Wood, 27, and Daniel J. Wilson, 27, both of Owatonna, who also have been charged in connection with the case.

Tampio's alleged sale of counterfeit one-hundreds to the undercover agent occurred during four meetings at the Truckers Inn in Faribault, the county charges against him state.

Tampio told the agent he preferred to counterfeit $100 bills rather than smaller denominations because the security strip in a $5 bill was in the same place as one embedded in a $100 bill, the charges said.

On June 21, U.S. Secret Service agents and local investigators searched Tampio's residence and found in a pants pocket a $100 bill that was used as a template for counterfeits, the charges say. Authorities also found two computer printers and several bleached or washed $5 bills, and cans of oven cleaner, according to the complaint.

In an interview with authorities, Tampio allegedly said that he was an addict and used methamphetamine.

In the federal indictment, Tampio, the two Camerons and Eric M. Dorman, 34, are accused of passing, dealing and altering currency. The others facing federal charges are Meranda L. O'Connor, 29, of Albert Lea, and Dustin D. Hanson, 34, of Northfield.