Major Drug, Counterfeit Ring Broken Up

Ventura County sheriff’s detectives have broken up what they say was a major cocaine and counterfeiting ring with the arrest in Newbury Park of a suspected cocaine wholesaler and two associates.

The $1 million in bogus $20 and $100 bills seized Tuesday from the suspects and their residences made it the largest counterfeiting arrest in Ventura County history, Ventura Sheriff’s Sgt. Gary Pentis said.

Counterfeit bills from the ring’s operations have recently surfaced in Simi Valley, Moorpark and San Francisco, as well as in Arizona and Nevada, Pentis said.

Detectives arrested David Steinberg, 24, and Bob Lepore, 24, both of Reseda, and Ethan Siegel, 25, of Encino during the sale of 22 pounds of cocaine near Potrero Road and Pinehill Street in Newbury Park, Pentis said.

Officers recovered $175,000 in counterfeit bills that had been crumpled to resemble used bills and two 9-millimeter automatic handguns, Pentis said.

A multi-agency task force had been tracking Steinberg for months as a suspected drug wholesaler who supplied cocaine and marijuana to dealers in Ventura County and the San Fernando Valley, Pentis said. He said officers closed in when they observed what they believed was a large transaction.

Pentis said some of the dealers allegedly supplied by Steinberg had set up businesses in leased storefronts and their residences to cover their illegal drug sales.

When task force officers, assisted by Secret Service agents and the Los Angeles Police Department, searched the residence Steinberg shared with Lepore, they found an additional $775,000 in bogus bills and photographic equipment used in the counterfeiting operation, Pentis said.

Among the items seized were bundles of cloth-like paper, blank metal plates, a camera, a light table and a dryer that the ring apparently used to make the bills appear older. A $100 bill was found in the dryer’s lint screen, Pentis said.

Packages of counterfeit bills in which the intensity of the ink had been varied were also found, Pentis said. “It looks like they experimented with the ink until they got it right,” Pentis said.

Investigators did not recover any engraved plates, Pentis said, but Secret Service agents were able to connect the currency to the rash of counterfeit bills that has surfaced in the area recently.

Most of the dealers affiliated with Steinberg are from the San Fernando Valley, Pentis said. “They’ve hung together since they were little criminals in high school,” he said.

Pentis said the investigation is continuing and more arrests are expected.

In addition to the counterfeit currency, Pentis said officers also seized a 12-gauge shotgun, a .22-caliber automatic pistol and a 9-millimeter handgun.