Raids Target Transit Authority

Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies seized guns, badges and police cars Tuesday and arrested the founder of a small San Gabriel Valley transit agency at the center of an investigation spawned by the February crash of a rare Ferrari in Malibu.

Deputies investigating the San Gabriel Valley Transit Authority searched its headquarters in Arcadia, as well as a Monrovia body shop and homes in Bradbury and Whittier owned by board members.

The action comes three months after Swedish businessman Bo Stefan Eriksson totaled a rare Ferrari Enzo on Pacific Coast Highway, telling deputies who responded that he was a deputy commissioner of the agency’s police “anti-terrorism unit.”

A few minutes later, two men arrived at the scene, identified themselves to deputies as “homeland security” officials and demanded to speak with Eriksson.

The former European video game executive was charged last month with embezzlement, grand theft auto, possession of a firearm and being under the influence of alcohol when he crashed the Ferrari. A one-time business associate was arrested for allegedly using a badge issued by the transit agency to illegally purchase a handgun.

Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore said Tuesday that detectives and prosecutors are trying to figure out why the men were connected to an obscure private company that provided rides to disabled people in Monrovia and Sierra Madre.

“This investigation is entirely focused like a laser beam on the San Gabriel Valley Transit Authority Police Department and whether laws have been violated,” Whitmore said. “Detectives are seeking to determine what the badges were used for and what is the extent of the agency.”

More than 25 deputies began the raids Tuesday about 7 a.m. One of the homes searched -- a large two-story Spanish-style estate in Bradbury -- belonged to agency founder Yosuf Maiwandi.

He was arrested on suspicion of perjury for allegedly signing a document in which he misrepresented his position, Whitmore said.

Authorities have long been perplexed about why the tiny transit authority, which has five buses, needed its own police department. Maiwandi said in the past that the department had six sworn volunteer officers.

Eriksson and other businessmen joined the agency as advisors to help with a wireless camera system for the buses, Maiwandi told The Times in a March interview. The advisors were made deputy police commissioners and received identification cards and badges.

At Maiwandi’s home, officials found a white, unmarked Ford Crown Victoria complete with radio equipment, computer mobile digital terminal, official government license plate, flashing front and rear lights and siren.

In Monrovia at Homer’s Auto Service, which was the original home of the transit agency, three sheriff’s officials arrived about 10:30 a.m. and questioned Maiwandi in the driveway. The investigators split up to search the premises. Maiwandi was taken into custody a short time later.

In total Tuesday, authorities seized hundreds of pages of documents as well as five firearms, several police jackets and more than 20 badges.

Whitmore acknowledged that the Sheriff’s Department is still sorting out how all the pieces of the investigation fit together.

When Eriksson was arrested last month at his Bel-Air home, authorities found an official transit police badge there.

He was ordered last week to stand trial on seven felony counts of embezzlement, grand theft auto and possession of a firearm and on two misdemeanor counts of driving under the influence. He has pleaded not guilty.

Authorities accuse his one-time business associate, Carl Freer, of pretending to be a police officer by flashing a transit authority police badge and signing a statement saying he was a police officer to purchase a handgun. As a foreign national, he is not allowed to purchase handguns. He was arrested but has not been charged.

Maiwandi said in the March interview that he created a police department solely to protect the agency’s bus riders and to have the authority to run background checks on drivers.

State law allows private transit agencies to form their own transit police, though officials said they are fairly rare.

Maiwandi told The Times he met Eriksson through Ashley Posner, a civil attorney for Eriksson and Freer who until recently was chairman of the agency.

Posner said he was not contacted by officials Tuesday. But he said this was not the first time detectives had sought records from the agency.

“I know [the] Sheriff’s [Department] sent someone over to look at the records,” Posner said. “Nothing is hidden. It wasn’t too long ago.”

Asked if he knew there were weapons at the auto shop, he said: “God, no. I hate weapons. I wouldn’t think any of them would be doing something improper, illegal or wrong.”

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Times staff writer Hemmy So contributed to this report.