Pair Seized, Charged in Counterfeit Check Ring

Two Los Angeles men, including a paroled con artist, were arrested Friday in Pacific Palisades and charged with passing counterfeit cashier’s checks after a gold coin seller was unable to cash a $32,800 check, police said.

Gregory Davis Werber, 22, and Jeffrey James Fitch, 33, were arrested for alleged involvement in a counterfeit-check scheme that over the past several months has defrauded about 10 Southland businesses of nearly $40,000, Sgt. Russell Meltzer of the Los Angeles Police Department’s bunco and forgery division said.

Other suspects in the bogus check ring remain at large, Meltzer said at a press conference Friday.

The biggest known loss was suffered by a firm that rented a Lear jet for a round trip to Las Vegas, Meltzer said. The trip was paid for with a phony $21,000 cashier’s check that, like all the checks used in the scheme, had “cashier’s” misspelled as “casher’s,” he said. Meltzer said that “at this time we have no idea who was on that jet. . . . “

No Loss for Coin Dealer

Investigators have not determined whether bogus checks also were used to pay for hotel accommodations and gambling in Las Vegas, he said.

The gold coin dealer whose report brought police into the case suffered no loss because he had not turned any coins over to the alleged scam artists, Meltzer said.

None of the businesses that accepted the bad checks--made out for sums ranging from $800 to $32,800--noticed the spelling mistake, he said.

During raids in Pacific Palisades and Mar Vista, authorities seized about 500 counterfeit cashier’s checks, credit cards, embossing equipment, forgery equipment and cocaine, Meltzer said.

Bank Does Not Exist

The suspects apparently intended to go into phony credit card operations, and had purchased some of the necessary equipment with the bogus cashier’s checks, Meltzer said.

Meltzer said Werber, the suspected ringleader of the operation, is already on parole from a prison term for forgery.

Investigators needed little time to establish that the checks were phony and that the bank they were supposedly drawn on--the American Overseas Bank--does not exist, Meltzer said.

But locating suspects was more difficult. Friday’s arrests came after a two-month effort by LAPD, state and federal investigators, Meltzer said.

Authorities have determined that the checks used in the scheme were printed in Hong Kong, Meltzer said.