Aircraft Probe Nets Simi Executive : Crime: Thanks to the federal Operation BreakApart, a businessman pays for selling counterfeit parts and falsifying documents.

It’s called Operation Break- Apart-- a massive federal probe into companies selling counterfeit airplane parts-- and it started three years ago in Oxnard.

The latest catch-- the owner of a Simi Valley firm-- handed over a $240,000 cashier’s check to satisfy a fine levied by a federal judge this week. U.S. District Judge Audrey B. Collins also ordered Billie W. Puckett, 63, to pay back as much as $90,000 to customers who unwittingly bought the counterfeit parts from his firm, Tri Air Supply Inc.

In May, Puckett, who acted as a middleman between parts manufacturers and airplane makers, confessed to falsifying federal documents and knowingly selling uncertified airplane parts to McDonnell Douglas Corp. Puckett sold nearly $200,000 worth of small devices used to keep an airplane’s landing gear from shaking. Douglas used the parts in its DC-9 commercial airplanes.

Puckett pawned off the bogus devices as the real thing, complete with assurances that the $735 parts had been certified by the Federal Aviation Administration. In fact, he was selling uncertified knockoffs that can be bought for one-third the price of their legal counterparts, Assistant U.S. Atty. George B. Newhouse Jr. said.

“You can make as much money as you can in the narcotics trade,” Newhouse said. “It is very lucrative.”

Officials started Operation BreakApart three years ago, when an employee at now-defunct Dixon Aircraft Components in Oxnard told authorities that his boss was cheating on its $1.5-million contract with the Air Force.

Owner Rudolph A. Dixon was fined and placed on probation for selling obsolete and counterfeit jet parts to the service, Newhouse said.

“That led directly to our interest in the industry in general,” Newhouse said.

That case led investigators to two other Southern California aircraft parts dealers who admitted selling counterfeit devices. They, in turn, led authorities to Puckett, Newhouse said.

James A. Fishback Sr. and Earlene C. Christenson, executives in a Fontana firm, were also fined and sentenced to short jail terms last year. Newhouse said Puckett avoided a prison term by cooperating with authorities. Collins placed Puckett on three years probation.

“When we searched his company in November, he basically said, ‘You got me’ and cooperated fully,” Newhouse said. Neither Puckett nor his attorney returned calls seeking comment.

Agents with the FBI, the FAA and the U.S. Department of Transportation expect more arrests under Operation BreakApart, Newhouse said.