It’s best to keep it legit and not counterfeit. So I was recently scrolling through a little shop I won’t name, and I see it. Labubu. Those weird little monster toys that look like a gremlin and a baby bunny had a kid. People online are paying hundreds for them. Rich collectors treat them like Pokémon cards. Me? Not a collector. But I see one for forty bucks and think, “Dang, that’s a steal.” Maybe my kid will want this thing.
So I buy it. Hand over my money, get the box, and feel like a total superhero dad. I present it to my daughter like it’s a golden ticket to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. She’s stoked — for about five minutes. Because that’s when we realize… it’s a fake. Straight-up counterfeit. And that’s when my stomach dropped.
Lucky for me, I’m only out of pizza money. But imagine being scammed out of hundreds, even thousands. That’s what two geniuses in Lee County were trying to do — except in reverse. According to Gulf Coast News, a guy and a girl went around Southwest Florida with fake $100 bills. They hit Farmer Joe’s in Cape Coral first, then Publix, Buffalo Grill, Mr. Wave, H20, Bella Mozzarella — basically the greatest hits of Fort Myers Beach food spots.
Counterfeit Cash Crooks:
And get this — the fake bills were actually $10 bills that they bleached and reprinted as $100s. Like some kind of middle school science project gone wrong. Investigators used surveillance footage and eyewitnesses to track them down. The two were caught at The Lani Kai with more bogus cash, and deputies swooped in. They’re now facing charges for allegedly uttering forged bills, which is Uncle Sam’s way of saying, “You’re in big trouble for fake money.”…