One pretty blatant tip that a whole bunch of money isn’t yours? If the bills aren’t even in circulation yet. The FBI doesn’t believe that $20,000 worth of $100 bills belong to a US Airways baggage handler for that very reason and arrested him yesterday for swiping them from a shipment of money headed to the Federal Reserve in East Rutherford, N.J. 

The Feds say the 25-year-old man, who worked at Philadelphia International Airport, also admitted to stealing the redesigned $100 bills after taking a polygraph test.

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, he’d simply opened up one of 60 packets of money   — part of a $192 million shipment of currency going from Dallas to New Jersey — and helped himself. He then stashed the cash in his wife’s car.

The FBI said his heist was discovered when the money arrived at the Fed and the opened packet was spotted (ed note: Whatever happened to covering your tracks? A little tape, maybe?)

The new bills feature “cutting-edge” anti-counterfeiting “enhancements’ like a 3-D security ribbon and “the bell in the Inkwell,” according to the U.S. Treasury. They were originally supposed to be circulated in February 2011 but the Federal Reserve discovered a problem with how the paper creases on the new notes.

If he hadn’t been caught after just opening that envelope and dipping into the cash, most likely someone would’ve noticed him using a bill that no one else has anyway.

US Airways bag handler arrested for alleged theft of uncirculated bills [Philadelphia Inquirer]

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