State College consumers can expect closer scrutinization of their $20 bills during their next purchases.

Local merchants have received six counterfeit $20 bills in the past three weeks. In the most recent incident, officials at Hills Department Store, 2121 S. Atherton St., discovered a fake bill on Jan. 4.

"We couldn't pinpoint when it came in," said Hills Operations Manager Ron Cushman, adding that a cashier most likely had accepted the bill less than 24 hours before its detection.

Two State College Uni-Marts and Bi Lo Food Market, located at Hills Plaza, also reported bogus bills.

"Hopefully we're not going to find any more," said Bill Wagner, a State College Police Department criminal investigator. But he said it would be premature to dismiss the possibility that more counterfeit currency will surface.

The cases have been turned over to the U.S. Secret Service for further investigation.

Wagner said the borough rarely finds this many fake bills at once. "If we get any, it might be one or two," he said.

The counterfeit bills contain two different shades of green ink, Wagner said. In addition, the Federal Reserve System banking letters and identification numbers do not match properly.

"If you examine it, you can tell with the naked eye," Wagner said.

Police suspect the fake money originated from within Centre County or a nearby county, such as Mifflin or Blair.

Local stores have not panicked during the rash of counterfeit discoveries.

"Pretty much all we did was take the last bill we got around to make everybody aware of it," Cushman said. "Basically, they're just keeping an eye out."

Employees at Bi Lo and the Uni-Mart at 200 E. College Ave. said cashiers there have been alerted, but the stores were doing nothing out of the ordinary to prevent future incidents.

Police have no suspects at this time.