SMITHFIELD -- Easter weekend was a busy one at Carolina Premium Outlets, and in all the chaos, someone was able to slip counterfeit $100 bills by the cashiers at a few stores.

Between Thursday, March 20, and Thursday, March 27, seven Smithfield businesses reported getting fake bills. Detective Walter Martin said at least four of the seven incidents appear to be connected.

Thursday night, The Cosmetic Co. reported a counterfeit bill, Outback Steakhouse and Food Lion did so on Saturday, and Strasburg Children and Ecko Unlimited filed police reports on Monday. OshKosh B’Gosh reported a counterfeit bill Thursday evening.

Martin said the bill taken in at Outback didn’t match the others, which looked like modified versions of actual bills, Martin said. On at least one, the historic figure in the background is Abraham Lincoln, not Benjamin Franklin.

“We think with one they washed a $5 bill and printed $100,” Martin said. “The description of several of them is the same.”

Martin said, from talking to staff at the outlet center, the counterfeit bills might have all come from one woman out on a shopping spree. In one case, a cashier picked up on the fact that a bill might be bogus, but waited to report it until after the woman left the store.

“They normally will notify all the businesses out there by memo about what’s going on,” Martin said.

Martin thinks more businesses at the outlet center are likely to come forward with reports soon.

Martin said he is going to be reviewing surveillance tape to put together a composite drawing, but with most of the activity going on so close to Interstate 95, it could be difficult to catch up with a suspect.

The fishy bills have been confiscated, and Martin said he has given law enforcement agencies across the state a heads up.