Counterfeiters hit Lake County casino

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LAKE COUNTY – Two men arrested Thursday for passing counterfeit $100 bills at Hopland casino also are alleged to have hit a local casino.


As Lake County News reported Friday, the California Attorney General's Office's Division of Gambling Control arrested Jack Daniels Ewing, 27, of Las Vegas, Nev., and Mikael Inturbe, 27, of Hercules at Hopland Sho-Ka-Wah Casino.


California Department of Justice agents and Mendocino County Sheriff's deputies arrested the men as they were feeding fake $100 bills into slot machines at Sho-Ka-Wah.


Attorney General's Office spokesman Gareth Lacy told Lake County News Friday that the agency tracked the two men for four months as they bleached real $1 bills and used home printers to make counterfeit $100 bills.


At least 20 casinos in Northern California and Nevada are believed to have been hit, said Lacy, for a total of $100,000.


Those casinos include Middletown Rancheria's Twin Pine Casino, Cache Creek, Jackson Rancheria and Thunder Valley, Lacy said.


And the numbers of casinos involved may be growing.


“We are getting more intelligence information from casinos as this investigation is still ongoing,” said Lacy.


The Attorney General's Office said the men fed the counterfeit bills into slot machines and then cashed out. They also occasionally played the machines using the fake bills, and won as much as $4,000 in one instance.


The two men had a “consistent baseball cap calling card,” said Lacy, using a variety of caps from different teams to help disguise themselves. But that helped investigators identify them in surveillance videos.


The baseball caps were found – along with the bleaching solutions, printers, a scanner, rubber gloves and bleached bills – when the Attorney General's Office raised an extended stay hotel in Richmond.


Inturbe has previous counterfeiting and homicide convictions. He and Ewing are facing charges of conspiracy, counterfeiting and burglary. Each is being held on $300,000 bail.


E-mail Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..


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