Four suspects from the Buffalo area were arrested by the Harper County Sheriff’s Office for manufacturing and using counterfeit bills.
Officials with Harper County would not release the suspects’ names Monday afternoon although they have all been charged with counterfeiting and conspiracy to counterfeit.
The suspects were arrested after they confessed to passing off fake $100 bills at three Woodward convenience stores, said Harper County Sheriff Marty Drew. The suspects also confessed to hitting two other stores in the Oklahoma City area, he said.
So in addition to the charges already filed against the suspects in Harper County, more counterfeiting charges are pending in Woodward County and yet more may come from the Oklahoma City area.
But while the suspects passed the fake bills in Woodward and Oklahoma City, they printed the money in Buffalo, Drew said. He said computers and printers were seized as evidence, as well as remains from other counterfeit money which the suspects had attempted to burn.
Drew said they were originally able to identify the first of the four suspects after his office received a tip that the suspect was printing counterfeit bills. He said he then used that tip to work in conjunction with the Woodward Police Department, which he knew had experienced some counterfeit cases and had video surveillance of the perpetrator.
Det. Lt. Chuck Wheeler said that he and Det. Sgt. Billy Parker were able to connect the video of the suspect to a picture that Drew provided, and thus both agencies were able to make substantial progress in their investigations.
Wheeler said that it is “always good” when law enforcement agencies are able to cooperate and help each other in cases.
He said that the Woodward Police Department is also willing to cooperate with agencies in Oklahoma City in order to assist them in their investigations.
But in this instance, the interagency and intercounty cooperation not only benefits those agencies who were able to apprehend the alleged criminals, but it also assists the businesses who were hurt by those alleged criminals, Wheeler said.
He said that hopefully when the suspects are prosecuted a restitution will be applied in addition to their other punishments so that the suspects can repay the businesses they defrauded.
It is important to help the businesses, Wheeler said, because “when businesses lose, we all lose.”
However, he said that the businesses and the agencies were fortunate in this case since they were able to get it solved so quickly, because he said a lot of times counterfeit cases do not get solved.
“It makes you feel really good to get cases like that solved,” Wheeler said.
“I’m real happy with the result,” he said.
