Crime & Safety

Collingswood Police Charge Sicklerville Man in Wawa Counterfeit Cash Scheme

Police say that Gregory A. Loveland passed fake bills at the borough Wawa in November and December and was charged with fraud.

A Sicklerville man who police say tried to pass off color copies of $20 bills as the real thing in at least two separate incidents at the Collingswood Wawa has been arrested.

Detectives finally caught up with Gregory A. Loveland, 45, in the Camden County correctional facility, where he had been jailed on an unrelated offense. He was subsequently charged with two counts of third-degree forgery.

But Loveland had had a couple of alleged near misses with managers at the Haddon Avenue Wawa in the months prior to their meeting.

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At 11:32 a.m. on December 14, a manager at the Collingswood Wawa allegedly realized that a customer had made a purchase using a color photocopy of a $20 bill. Then she ran outside and allegedly saw the customer leave the parking lot headed onto Haddon Avenue in a 2002 Dodge Ram.

The manager recorded the license plate of the vehicle, which was registered to an address in Newfield, NJ. While making her statement to police that day, she also noticed a counterfeit $10 bill in the register, which she turned over to police.

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Police matched her description to that of the suspect in another incident that had been reported at the same Wawa at 5:07 a.m. on Nov. 26. 

The suspect in that instance purchased $36.80 worth of goods and allegedly paid with three counterfeit $20 bills, leaving in a silver, four-door Chevrolet before the manager realized the bills were fakes.

Then, at 1:53 p.m. that same day, another customer allegedly attempted to make a purchase using a counterfeit $10 bill. When the cashier advised that man that the bill was counterfeit, police say he left the store and entered the same silver Chevrolet that had been seen at the Wawa that morning.

Loveland was charged in connection with the first two incidents; police have photos of the other suspect, but he remains unidentified.

Finally, at 9:25 a.m. on December 18, a Camden resident tried to use what cashiers determined was a counterfeit $5 bill to make a purchase at the same Wawa, but he was denied. 

That man reported the incident to Collingswood police, who confiscated the $5 bill and took his statement. The man said he'd received the bill as change after having made a purchase elsewhere.

Funny money had surfaced earlier in the month, as Collingswood police were dispatched to a restaurant in the 800 block of Haddon Avenue on November 21 to investigate another claim of receiving counterfeit cash.


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