One Long Islander is about to have a very unpleasant meeting with the Secret Service. Because of a bank mixup, $100k in counterfeit cash was recently discovered at a Chase in Huntington. And they would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for an old man's innocent error!
As the Daily News reports, the whole thing started last Thursday when an "elderly gentleman" went in to get some papers out of his box:
Accompanied by an assistant manager, the customer was escorted to the bank vault, where he attempted to open Box No. 142 with his key, but it didn’t fit, say court papers.
The assistant manager noticed the key was marked for Box No. 304 and opened that box instead. It contained two large packages of what appeared to be funny money.
“(The customer) stated he was confused . . . and claimed he did not know how that much money got into his safety deposit box,” according to court papers.
All in all, there were $112,000 in fake Federal Reserve Notes neatly packed in the box. The next day the older man cleared everything up on his end when he came in with two safety deposit box keys. One for 142 and one for 304. Turns out he'd had a box at the bank when it was a Bank of New York, and though he closed it out he'd kept the key—and the bank never changed the locks.
The current owner of the safety deposit box, a Huntington resident, has not yet been charged.
