Nothing Bogus About O.C. Role in Counterfeiting : Crime: ‘Funny money’ cases developing here increasingly rival those of larger, more urban counties. Orange County has people with funds to finance such things, a U.S. agent says.

It came as no surprise to federal agents last month when two large counterfeit-money operations were busted, both of them with ties to illegal drugs.

Orange County, it seems, is fast gaining an unsavory reputation among law enforcement officers for producing criminal cases that rival those of larger, more urban counties such as Los Angeles.

And the two counterfeit cases with ties to Orange County, experts say, are just the latest in a string of criminal activity that has put the county at the forefront in the war on crime.

“There are a number of good cases that come out of Orange County,” said Clint Howard, special agent in charge of the Los Angeles office of the Secret Service. “Affluency is one reason. It takes money to start one of these operations, usually about $20,000, and Orange County has people with money to finance such things.

“I don’t have statistics separating the county from all the other cases we handle, but many big cases have developed in Orange County. The two announced (Thursday) are very big. In those two cases we seized $30 million (in counterfeit money), and that’s almost half of all the counterfeit money we seized in the nation last year.”

Orange County’s prominence in counterfeit operations stems mainly from its geography, according to Howard and other agents. The county is part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, and that area last year was the most active in the nation in counterfeit-money seizures.

And this year may be no different, thanks in part to the two Orange County-related cases announced Thursday.

In one case, Secret Service agents arrested two men in a rented townhouse in Huntington Beach on May 21. The agents seized $20 million in counterfeit money, allegedly printed by Joseph Kelly, 54, and Terrence Nikrasch, 55.

In the other case, agents on May 31 arrested Gary K. McMurty, 46, a La Habra accountant. He was charged with operating a counterfeit scheme out of a rented warehouse in Pomona. Agents said they seized $10 million in that case.

While the two cases were not directly related, Howard said they both had a common theme: drugs. Both operations were geared to using counterfeit money to purchase illicit drugs in Central and South America and resell them in the United States, Howard said. He said the arrests foiled those plans.

Another major counterfeit case now under investigation by the Secret Service also involves Orange County, Howard disclosed Thursday.

“Some group is defrauding new immigrants in Orange County and other parts of Southern California by passing counterfeit $20 bills to them,” Howard said. “The 20s are primarily being passed in the Hispanic community, and it amounts to a total of about $15,000 to $20,000 a week. We’re not sure if the operation is based in Mexico or in the United States.”

Howard said the bogus money given to Mexicans and other immigrants is particularly reprehensible because the victims are already poor and struggling to survive. “Primarily, these are migrant farm workers,” Howard said.

The Secret Service hopes to crack this scheme before it becomes more widespread. But Howard noted that most counterfeiters invariably trap themselves.

In Washington, agent Allan Cramer, a Secret Service spokesman, similarly said that counterfeiters almost always get caught.

“It’s a dumb business to get into,” Cramer said. “It’s a business where you always leave a paper trail.” Cramer said that counterfeiting also is not a quick-and-easy business to start. “It takes a lot of skill and training (to be able to make passable counterfeit money).”

Those involved are often repeat offenders, making it easier for authorities to make follow-up arrests.

Howard disclosed Thursday that the Huntington Beach arrests came about because the Secret Service had been keeping track of Kelly, who had been previously convicted in 1981 and 1985 on counterfeit charges.

“Kelly has been out on probation about six months, and he was in Cincinnati, working in a photo shop, and then he disappeared from there,” Howard said. The Secret Service asked the FBI for help, and agents found Kelly had moved to Orange County.

“Kelly had met Nikrasch at a federal prison in Arizona, and so now the two of them were renting this really nice place in Huntington Beach,” Howard said. “We staked the place out for two weeks, then made an arrest. All the equipment was in the garage, which they had sealed up.”

In the case of McMurty, the La Habra accountant arrested for counterfeiting, Howard said there was a large paper trail to follow.

“McMurty is what you might call a typical CPA (certified public accountant),” Howard said. “He is extremely well organized, and he did a tremendous amount of research. He talked to supply houses and all kinds of manufacturers of paper. He was a perfectionist.”

Howard, while not pinpointing the tip that led the Secret Service to McMurty, said that people in the printing and paper industries frequently notify the agency of any suspicious purchases or activities.

McMurty, he said, left clues as he methodically researched ways to make counterfeit bills.

Occasionally, some counterfeit activity puzzles investigators.

On Feb. 20, 1989, a motorist on Alton Parkway in Irvine watched the car in front of him plow into a garbage bag in the middle of the highway. The garbage bag burst open, spewing out thousands of $100 bills on the roadway and adjoining property. Motorists stopped and collected some of the bills, only to find they were counterfeit. More than $100,000 in fake money was found.

“You know what? We still don’t know where that money came from,” Howard said.