FEDS SEIZE BIG STASH OF FAKE IDS.

Byline: Douglas Haberman Daily News Staff Writer

Federal agents have seized more than 2 million fake identity papers, exposing a thriving underground market that officials said served illegal immigrants, criminals and even college students.

In the largest raid of its kind, the Immigration and Naturalization Service said Thursday that it confiscated $80 million in bogus Social Security cards, driver's licenses and other identity papers in Eagle Rock and Los Angeles.

``They were stacked from the floor to the ceiling in a 10-by-12 storage room,'' said Aaron Wilson, INS supervisory special agent. ``I and my investigators were stunned to see it.''

The documents were sold nationwide and across Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley, with nearly 90 percent ending up in the hands of illegal immigrants who needed IDs to secure jobs, he said.

Some were sold to criminals seeking a new identity or to defraud credit card companies, cash traveler's checks and commit welfare fraud.

But what surprised agents the most during their four-month surveillance of the suspected ringleader's restaurant in the MacArthur Park area is that the customers included college students from UCLA and USC who wanted fake IDs so they could drink illegally.

Some got while-you-wait service from restaurant employees in just 15 minutes, but others had to return the next day, Wilson said.

``They were doing hand-to-hand transactions,'' he said.

Customers would turn over an ID-size photograph and the necessary biographical information and then specify what kind of ID they wanted, such as a California driver's license, Wilson said.

Agents confiscated the fake licenses but didn't arrest the students so as not to hinder the investigation into the counterfeiting ring, he said.

It was easy to buy IDs, he said, adding, ``I could probably do it with a police-raid jacket on.''

According to the INS, the seizures were a crushing blow to the United States' biggest distributor of fraudulent documents, which has been linked to 80 other INS cases nationwide.

As in the past, MacArthur Park and Huntington Park were the top places to buy fake identification in Los Angeles, but the ring also supplied sellers in several San Fernando Valley neighborhoods, Wilson said.

In Canoga Park, they operate on Sherman Way between Variel and Independence avenues, and in Van Nuys, they ply their trade near the intersections of Van Nuys Boulevard and Kester Avenue with Victory Boulevard, Wilson said. Some also sell the counterfeit documents in Pacoima off Van Nuys Boulevard, he said.

No arrests were made in the Valley in connection with last week's raids.

Nine men were arrested in the series of raids, including Juan San German, a 30-year-old Mexican citizen believed to be the ringleader, INS officials said.

Based on the seizure, the ring already has had an immeasurable impact over at least six years of operation, Wilson said.

``This really could have an impact on the national economy,'' he said. ``The quality is extremely good.''

Based on information from confidential sources and from documents seized in last week's raids, INS undercover special agents on Tuesday searched two storage facilities, at 1282 Sunset Blvd. and 3810 Eagle Rock Blvd., and found the stash of documents.

At the Sunset Boulevard site, agents seized instructions for operating a printing press, a print-negative machine, printing plates and rollers, and four boxes of handgun and shotgun ammunition.

In Eagle Rock, agents confiscated more than 2 million counterfeit documents, enough paper materials to make 250,000 phony INS permanent resident cards, and 95 printing plates used to make the forged documents.

``To us, a hundred thousand is a lot,'' said INS acting district director Rosemary Melville, commenting on the magnitude of the seizure.

At a news conference at the federal building downtown, INS officials showed off the seized goods, including resident alien cards, INS employment authorization cards, driver's licenses from nine states including California, Social Security cards, Mexican birth certificates and even California state vehicle title certificates.

The INS is searching for San German's sister, Rosa, who is believed to be in this country and sometimes uses the alias Martha Monnie Martinez. Juan San German was actually arrested on a Texas warrant from a 1995 INS counterfeiting scheme and will be extradited there before coming back to California to face trial, Melville said.

The agency's investigation goes on, she said, so vendors of fraudulent documents shouldn't think the worst is over. ``They should indeed be very scared,'' she added.

Across the street from MacArthur Park on Thursday afternoon, a seller who appeared to be about 20 stood against a wall at the southeast corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Alvarado Street, waiting for customers willing to pay the $50 needed for a fake driver's license. He had been in the country about a month, hadn't heard anything about the arrests and the name Juan San German meant nothing to him, he said in Spanish.

If there was any effect on sales of counterfeit documents, he wasn't aware of it yet, he said. ``It's still easy to get them,'' he added, smiling.

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Photo: The seizure of $80 million in phony documents, stacks of which were on display Thursday, are discussed by Justice Department officials, right, at the federal building in downtown Los Angeles.

David Sprague/Daily News