ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, March 25, 1997 TAG: 9703250081
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Some cashiers find it hard to spot a counterfeit, though, because they're not used to Ben Franklin's new look.
One year after its introduction, the newly designed $100 bill appears to be accepted at home and abroad and - more importantly - seems to be deterring counterfeiting.
Not that there haven't been attempts - from the serious to the silly. The first try, less than two weeks after the bills' debut on March 25, 1996, occurred when a Gilbert, W.Va., teen-ager used his computer to make several versions - some with his own portrait in place of Ben Franklin's.
Police said he apparently didn't intend to use any. They looked purplish. But his uncle was charged with trying to pass one at a gas station and a McDonald's restaurant.
In the largest, more serious attempt to date, four men from Kingston, Jamaica, were charged with printing more than $10 million in bogus C-notes in Miami. The four were arrested by undercover Secret Service agents on March 6 before they got a chance to pass any.
According to a federal indictment, they attempted to reproduce a key new security feature - the color-shifting ``100'' in the notes' lower right corner. On genuine bills, the number appears green when viewed straight on but black when viewed at an angle.
In January, three men were arrested in St. Petersburg, Russia, after trying to sell 14 phony bills at a shopping mall.
The Secret Service says that while some counterfeits have attempted to duplicate some security features, none have been what it terms ``highly deceptive.''
``Some have been deceptive enough to get by a clerk in a grocery or retail store,'' said Special Agent Arnette Heinze. ``But in virtually every case they've been detected at the bank or through the Federal Reserve System.''
Nevertheless, some customers are getting burned by counterfeit new notes, even though they're not of high quality, said a security director for a major bank with 600 branches across the Southeast.
``The merchant has a feel for the old bills and generally can identify them up front,'' said Boris Melnikoff, senior vice president of Wachovia Corp. in Atlanta. ``But the new bills, being something entirely new, are being readily accepted.''
``Until everyone becomes acclimated, we'll probably see an increase in this type of activity,'' he said.
The new C-note has several unique features. There's the color-shifting ink, a watermark in the shape of Franklin's portrait, a polymer security thread and in barely visible microprinting, the words ``United States of America'' on Franklin's coat.
LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS. Crooks are finding the 1-year-oldby CNBrevised C-note harder to copy. color.