DRUG SALES, COUNTERFEITING FUNDING TERRORISM SHERIFF'S OFFICE SAYS IT'S INTERCEPTED PLOTS, TRACED MONEY BACK TO EXTREMIST GROUPS.

Byline: TROY ANDERSON

Staff Writer

Terrorists and terrorist sympathizers in Los Angeles and around the world are using proceeds from counterfeiting, drug trafficking and other crimes to fund global activities, authorities said Friday.

The news comes as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is expected to release a Gallup study on consumer behavior and data today showing counterfeiting and piracy costs Americans $250 billion annually.

Chamber spokeswoman Katie Wilson said counterfeiting of everything from CDs, DVDs and handbags to medications, cigarettes and toothpaste is one of the biggest problems in the nation.

And about two-thirds of the counterfeit products are being shipped to ports including Long Beach and Los Angeles from China, Russia, the Middle East, India and South America, Wilson said.

"These are sophisticated criminals who are linked to organized crime and terrorism and can move items with a speed that is unlike any multinational corporation," Wilson said.

"Whether it's terrorists or organized criminal networks, at the end of the day, these are not good people and they are using these operations for bad things."

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca said he is concerned about terrorists and their sympathizers in Los Angeles who are involved in counterfeiting and drug trafficking to help fund their operations.

"We've been able to intercept plots, and not just plots but criminal acts, where counterfeited software was being sold on the black market and those profits were traced back to the Middle East," Baca said.

Sheriff's Capt. Eric Parra, who oversees criminal terrorist investigations, said counterfeiting and piracy is a significant county problem with a lot of the profits wired overseas.

"A lot of times we go to serve warrants on these people and the money gets traced back to the Middle East," Parra said. "There are links between counterfeiting and the funding of extremist activity."

In 2005, the Sheriff's Department arrested 125 people, seized $16 million in merchandise and $3.5 million in cash in counterfeit goods and piracy cases that had a nexus to Eurasian, Russian and Lebanese organized crime and terrorist groups, said Sheriff's Lt. John Sullivan, who founded the Terrorism Early Warning Group.

Concerns about terrorists using counterfeiting and piracy to raise funds follows a Daily News series that found organized crime and terrorist groups in Los Angeles and across the nation are defrauding government health and welfare programs out of as much as $150 billion a year.

Law enforcement officials say much of the money is laundered overseas, where an unknown amount funds terrorist activities.

Baca said that as law enforcement officials have cut off terrorists' source of funding from nonprofit organizations, they are partnering with organizations in South America that smuggle drugs into the U.S. to help raise funds.

Baca cited the Kurdistan Workers Party, a radical Kurdish group in Turkey that has committed terrorist acts.

"I recently learned from a police chief in Turkey that they are now in partnership with drug-dealing cartels in South America and they are taking drug money profits and using that for terrorist activity," Baca said.

"So we have a problem with counterfeit products being sold by terrorists and then we have a problem with drugs being sold by terrorists."

troy.anderson(at)dailynews.com

[phone]