Three Held in Raid Targeting Counterfeit Document Ring

An apartment building near MacArthur Park that federal immigration agents raided this past weekend was serving as a key base for one of the nation’s largest counterfeit-document operations, officials said Monday.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service arrested three alleged ringleaders--one of them a former Mexican police officer--and seized printing material along with more than 16,000 counterfeit documents, including phony Social Security cards, birth certificates, “green cards” and driver’s licenses from 12 states. Documents traced to the ring have turned up in 78 cities, officials said.

“The demand [for false documents] is huge because of the large illegal immigrant populations in large cities across the country,” said Bill Strassberger, an INS spokesman.

The alleged ring is the same family-run syndicate targeted in May, when agents arrested two other alleged ringleaders and seized more than 24,000 counterfeit documents, a portable printing press and other supplies. The two suspects in that case have pleaded guilty to counterfeiting and other charges and are awaiting sentencing, officials said.

Los Angeles serves as national capital for the thriving counterfeit document business and is also a key hub for the smuggling of illegal immigrants.

The three suspects arrested Saturday in an apartment building in the 900 block of South Lake Street were to be arraigned this week on federal counterfeiting and other charges.

The suspects were identified as two brothers--Miguel Alfonso Castorena Churiel, 33, and Martin Castorena Churiel, 25--and Clemente Alfonso Martinez Ibarra, 40, whom the INS identified as a former federal and state police officer in Mexico.