Money to Burn : Bogus Bills Flood Secret Service, Charged With Tracking Down Counterfeiters

Money pours in every day to the U.S. Secret Service office in Ventura.

In denominations from $1 to $100, the cash flows in from a variety of sources and often totals $2,500 by week’s end. But far from representing a windfall for the government, the money is headed for destruction.

It’s as phony as a $3 bill, and the Secret Service is charged with finding out who made it and how to keep it out of circulation.

The Secret Service, so closely associated with protecting the President of the United States, actually spends the bulk of its resources investigating counterfeiting operations and credit-card scams.

The Telegraph Road office--which moved here from Santa Barbara two years ago--does some protection work, safeguarding Ronald and Nancy Reagan when they are at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library near Simi Valley or at the former President’s ranch in Santa Barbara County. However, the three agents assigned to the office spend most of their time tracking down counterfeit money.

And there is enough of it around to keep the agents busy full time.

“California is the king of fraud,” said J. Kevin Riordan, agent in charge of the Ventura office.

Although the office is responsible for investigating counterfeiting in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties as well as Ventura, about 60% of the work is generated here, Riordan said.

That, Riordan said, is because of Ventura County’s proximity to Los Angeles.

“Unfortunately, there’s no wall there” between the counties, Riordan said.

On a typical day in the office, a stack of mail arrives from banks, police departments and individuals. Each envelope contains one or more bills that the sender believes are counterfeit, and a full-time clerical worker types into a computer such key information as the serial numbers from the money.

Within minutes, local agents can tell if the counterfeit cash matches any bills seized elsewhere in the country. Sometimes the computer specifies who made the bogus bills and how big the counterfeiting operation is.

Much of the money seized in Ventura County actually originated outside the United States.

But there are exceptions--the Secret Service’s Ventura office was heavily involved in the case of two men who made hundreds of thousands of dollars of counterfeit money in their spare time as employees at a Ventura print shop.

“They basically had the run of the print shop at night,” said Riordan, explaining how James F. Hanson, 31, of Chatsworth and Jeffrey D. Sevier, 28, of Thousand Oaks were able to manufacture the money without being detected.

Riordan said his office knew the counterfeit cash existed because some of it was discovered in a recycling bin and forwarded to the Secret Service. However, it was not until Ventura police stopped Sevier for a traffic offense and found more phony money in his car that agents knew who was behind the job, Riordan said.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Mark Aveis, who prosecuted the men, said the presence of a Secret Service office in the county was invaluable in bringing the case to a successful conclusion.

The Secret Service was the lead investigating agency and provided expertise to counter the defendants’ claims that they were just “fooling around” when they made the bills, Aveis said.

“It’s more than just saying something is counterfeit; it’s also necessary to show the seriousness of the perpetrators,” Aveis said.

The agent assigned to the case said the counterfeiting effort of Sevier and Hanson was “not a great job, but it certainly wasn’t a bad job,” Aveis said.

Hanson and Sevier pleaded guilty in Ventura County Superior Court to a variety of felony charges, including forgery and making counterfeit plates. Hanson was sentenced to a year in jail, and Sevier received a nine-month sentence.

Unlike in the past, Riordan said, counterfeiters today don’t need extensive training in printing and platemaking to practice their illicit craft. Sophisticated copy machines can put anyone in business, the agent said.

“Today you can have a high school kid, which is typical, go into the library and make a copy of a $1 bill, then go to the Coke machine to get a soda,” Riordan said.

Eliminating counterfeit money was the charge given to the Secret Service when it was established in 1865. Protecting Presidents became one of the agency’s duties in 1901, and as the years have gone by and technology has made crime more sophisticated, fraud using credit cards, cellular phones and automated teller machines has also come under the jurisdiction of the Secret Service.

Senior Deputy William Gentry with the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department said he worked closely with the Secret Service office when he was assigned to investigate check fraud and forgery.

The Secret Service gave the Sheriff’s Department “up to three extra investigators that we wouldn’t normally have available to us,” because the Ventura agents worked the cases with local law enforcement, Gentry said.

“All it takes is a phone call any time of the day or night, and they’re there,” he said.

Last year, the Secret Service helped investigate Terry Len Fowler of Moorpark, who had more than 2,700 stolen credit card numbers he was using to travel worldwide and purchase whatever he wanted, Gentry said.

Fowler was sentenced to seven years in prison after being prosecuted in state court.

“A large part of our success is due basically to the tireless help that we get” from the Secret Service, Gentry said.

On the wall of Riordan’s office are autographed pictures of the people he has protected or worked with during his 20 years with the Secret Service. He protected the Pope during a three-week United States tour in 1987; he was assigned to Walter Mondale during the four years he was vice president, and he protected candidate Eugene McCarthy during the 1976 presidential campaign.

There is also a picture taken last year of Riordan standing with Reagan at the presidential library.

Riordan and the two other Secret Service agents assigned to Ventura still do protection work when President Clinton or other heads of state visit California. They also do the advance work at the library or ranch when the Reagans are expected.

And just as local police agencies expressed appreciation for the help the county’s Secret Service office provides them, Riordan praises the assistance he gets from local law enforcement.

“We couldn’t do our job without the state,” he said. “We work with all the local agencies on a daily basis.”

As electronic crime becomes more prevalent in the county, agents assigned to the Ventura office must be more selective about which cases they investigate. Although they are given jurisdiction over all credit card fraud, the Secret Service does not get involved unless the theft involves $100,000 or more, Riordan said.

But the same discretion does not apply to counterfeit money, the agent said. Whether it is one bogus bill or many, it is seized and an effort is made to stop the production and prosecute the counterfeiters.

“Our job is to suppress the counterfeiting of money to protect the financial integrity of the country,” Riordan said. “That’s what we were founded for, and it remains the core of what we stand for.”