GARDEN GROVE : 4 Charged With Forging Checks

Four people have been charged with making and cashing fake checks totaling several million dollars from San Diego to San Francisco, Long Beach police said Friday.

The four were among about a dozen people arrested Sept. 30 in raids of a house and an apartment in the 9800 block of Kern Avenue in Garden Grove, said Sgt. Chris Marino of the Long Beach Police Department.

The early-morning arrests resulted from an investigation in which an undercover officer infiltrated a ring of mostly young men, after a large number of counterfeit checks began turning up in Long Beach nearly a year ago, Marino said.

The men used the apartment as an office to print checks using a computer and four color laser printers, police said.

Others in the ring then would recruit and drive people to cash the phony checks at various banks. Each courier got 10% of the amount of the cashed check, Marino said.

In Long Beach alone, between 30 and 40 people had been cashing checks for this ring, he said.

Ring members passed phony personal and payroll checks, Marino said, adding that he did not know the amounts.

Investigators have not been able to trace the money and speculated the ring might be working for older, more established gangs that have roots in Hong Kong, he said.

Charged Thursday with conspiracy to commit forgery were Binh Cong Truong, 23; David Dae Hung Jung, 20; Joshua Yuan Sheng, 18, and Khanh Ly Thi Ha, 22.

Truong, Ha and seven other suspects were still sleeping when about a dozen investigators from the Long Beach and Garden Grove police departments banged on their doors in the September raid.

“They didn’t try to fight or run,” Marino said. “There was nowhere to run. We had them surrounded.”

Inside the house, officers found phony checks, $6,000 cash, stolen televisions and stereos with serial numbers removed, and documents leading to a nearby apartment, police said.

Police went to that apartment several hours later and found 27 weapons, including two AK-47s, a rifle and a sawed-off shotgun; a few ounces of rock cocaine; computer equipment; false California driver’s licenses; a device to change the magnetic reading of credit cards, and 20 cellular phones.

The evidence indicated that the ring might have been selling guns and illegally using cellular phone accounts belonging to other people.

“It was a working office. There were no beds or clothes in the apartment,” Marino said.

While detectives were inside, three men, including Jung, arrived and were arrested, police said. Sheng had been arrested the day before by an undercover officer.

All four are being held at County Jail, according to Diana Gomez, a deputy district attorney. They are scheduled to appear in Municipal Court in Westminster on Thursday for a preliminary hearing, she said.

The others picked up in the raid were turned over to parole, probation or immigration officials, Marino said.