PORT ORCHARD, Wash. -- Phony $50 bills are showing up on the Kitsap Peninsula and police are warning businesses and consumers to be on the lookout.

The counterfeit bills are made using real money, $5 bills that have been chemically washed and then re-printed into higher denominations.

Rebecca Myaer at Xpresso Bean Coffee outside Silverdale was fooled when one of the bills was used to make a $12 purchase two days ago.

She quickly became suspicious.

“I felt like there was something not quite right about it,” Myaer said.

She said several people looked at it and they realized it was a $5 bill.

Another one of the bills was passed at the Joy and Peace Christian Book Center in east Bremerton just three days earlier, when the culprit, paying for an $18 purchase took advantage of a busy clerk.

“Generally the clerk should notice, but she had other customers standing behind this gentleman and she was in a hurry to take care of him so she could get to the next person,” said Ken Fulcher of Joy and Peace Books.

Kitsap County sheriff's detectives have recovered close to 12 of the counterfeit 50s, but don't know who is printing them.

Detectives are warning businesses or anyone getting a bill to check the watermark on the bill's face.

If an outline of Abraham Lincoln is visible, then it’s a reprinted $5 bill, not a $50 bill.

“One person could conceivably produce this kind of an operation. What we've found through past experience is it's generally going to be a handful,” said Kitsap County deputy Scott Wilson.

Anyone who may be able to identify the people behind the counterfeit bills should call the sheriff’s department.