3 Arrested in Probe of Bus Pass Counterfeiting
A 30-year-old man described as “the premier forger” of bus passes in Los Angeles has been arrested after a six-month-investigation, Los Angeles police and Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials said Monday.
Pedro Sotello, believed to have been forging bus passes since 1995, was arrested along with Tomiko Cash, 23, described as his girlfriend, during a raid Thursday on Sotello’s Boylston Street home, police said.
Police also arrested Amira Mogollon Cabeza, 47, described as a distributor of the bogus bus passes, in a raid on the California Beauty Salon at 229 W. 8th St. Undercover police bought forged bus passes at the beauty shop.
All three were charged with counterfeiting bus passes. Two other people, whom police did not identify, were arrested for misdemeanor possession of the stolen bus passes.
Agapito Diaz, director of revenue for the MTA, said studies of the transit industry indicate an agency as large as the MTA loses about $2 million a year because of bus pass forgeries. Police said Sotello is believed to be the source of the vast majority of forgeries in Los Angeles, but could not say how many bogus passes were being sold each month.
The arrests of the three principals in the scheme were expected to “put a big dent” in the trafficking of forgeries, Diaz said.
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