Shelton Police, Secret Service Recover Funny Money

Shelton police and U.S. Secret Service agents raided a house on Shinnacock Trail today, recovered about $7,000 in counterfeit money and arrested a 22-year-old man.

Kyle S. Ouellet, 22, is charged with first-degree forgery, a felony.

Shelton police believe Ouellet passed several counterfeit $20 bills around May 8 at the Cumberland Farms gas station at 819 River Road.

Detective Richard Bango was assigned the case. 

A clerk at the store was able to identify Ouellet from the store’s surveillance camera, according to Detective Sgt. Kevin F. Ahern. 

Bango collected enough information to convince a judge to sign a search and seizure warrant for Ouellet’s Shinnacock Trail residence.

Authorities raided the home at about 6:30 a.m. Tuesday (May 15).

Police said they recovered about $7,000 of counterfeit money in different stages of print.”

Some were completed. Some had fronts, some only had backs,” Ahern said. The $20 bills looked very good — the $100 bills, so-so.”

Police are reaching out to neighboring towns to determine whether the counterfeit cash was passed anywhere else.

Some counterfeiters print money using their computers, others scrub $1 bills to create new bills.

Ouellet was allegedly doing a little of everything,” Ahern said.

This isn’t Ouellet’s first brush with authorities.

He was charged with 14 felony counts of first-degree forgery by Trumbull police in 2010.

In that case, Ouellet was accused of passing fake $100 bills at the Westfield mall, according to a story in the Connecticut Post.

He was sentenced to five years probation — with the caveat that he could do five years in prison if he violated his probation.

He also landed in hot water for printing counterfeit money in 2009, according to the Post.

Click here to read the Post’s 2010 story.

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