City drug raid yields counterfeit currency
An apparent currency counterfeiting operation was uncovered during a drug raid Wednesday night at a Butler home, authorities said.
A fistful of phony $50s were seized as well as equipment, including a desk jet printer and scanners.
The workmanship of the funny money impressed Butler County's Chief Detective Tim Fennell.
“They looked pretty dang real,” he said Wednesday.
Fennell also heads the county's drug task force that led the raid shortly after 8 p.m. at the two-story rental house, which is divided into separate apartments, on Fourth Avenue.
The task force arrested Maurice W. Johnson, 35, and Jennifer N. Perdue, 42, who live in the first-floor apartment. Another woman also lives there, but she was not home.
Fennell said that resident, whom he did not identify, remains under investigation. The second-floor apartment is vacant.
District Judge Wayne Seibel arraigned both Johnson and Perdue on a felony charge of forgery and a misdemeanor count of possession of a controlled substance.
Perdue also was arraigned on a felony charge of conspiracy to commit delivery of a controlled substance.
The defendants remain in the Butler County Prison on $25,000 each. Additionally, Perdue is being held on a probation detainer.
The task force operation on Tuesday culminated a three-week investigation into suspected sales of crack cocaine and methamphetamine.
Officers conducted two controlled drug buys at the home using a police informant before the search warrant was executed. The second controlled buy allegedly occurred just before the raid.Seibel signed a search warrant to allow officers to look for evidence of drugs. Butler police and the county's emergency services unit assisted in executing the warrant.A distraction device, or flash bang, was set off outside before a contingent of 20 officers breached the door.Along with Johnson and Perdue, officers found two other “guests” inside the home, Fennell said. The two others were “detained, interviewed and released,” he noted. He would not identify them.Seized from a book bag belonging to Johnson were five stamp bags of suspected heroin, according to court documents. In Perdue's purse, officers turned up three stamp bags.The search did not yield much in drugs, Fennell conceded. But during that search, officers noticed other potential evidence — namely, counterfeiting items — not covered under the warrant.They applied for and obtained a second warrant for the evidence of the alleged counterfeiting operation.
In addition to the scanners and printer, documents said, among the items seized in the second warrant search were “washed” $1 bills and multiple $50 bills.The currency of the larger denomination was obviously counterfeit, Fennell said. Those bills carried the same serial numbers, and some were only printed on one side.The so-called “washed” $1 bills, authorities said, had apparently been soaked in a solution to remove the ink without damaging the paper.Investigators believe that as part of the counterfeiting, the $50 bills were copied onto the paper.Fennell was reluctant to discuss the somewhat complex printing process out of fear of encouraging copycats.“They feel correct,” he said of the finished phony $50 bills. “But you can tell they're not real on close examination.”The operation was not sophisticated, he acknowledged. But neither was it child's play.“They weren't making hundreds of thousands (in counterfeit currency),” Fennell said, “but we have about $3,000 worth of counterfeit $50s.”Authorities believe the operation could be responsible for some fake $50 bills that have recently been passed at local stores.The discovery of the alleged bogus bills and other suspected counterfeiting equipment during the raid did not come as a complete surprise to the task force.“We had unsubstantiated information (the home's residents) were somehow connected to the $50s floating around the community,” Fennell said.He added that more arrests could follow as the investigation continues.
