2 Fla. men charged with counterfeiting

Associated Press

CINCINNATI

Two Florida men face a federal indictment in Ohio that accuses them of sneaking counterfeit U.S. $100 bills from South America into the United States, hiding them in the headrests of rental cars and using about $5,000 a day in fake money on shopping trips around the country, authorities said Thursday.

The men would hide the counterfeit money in their shoes or secret pockets in pants to get it into the United States and “coat the bills with hairspray or other product” to avoid detection by counterfeit-deterring pens used by store clerks, according to the indictment in U.S. District Court in Cincinnati.

Hilde Brando Uscategui, 41, and Stuart J. Rodriguez, 21, both of Miami, were indicted June 1 by a federal grand jury in Cincinnati on one count each of conspiracy to pass counterfeit currency and conspiracy to launder money and two counts each of passing and possessing counterfeit currency.

The indictment was announced Thursday, a day after Secret Service agents arrested Rodriguez in Miami. Authorities still were searching for Uscategui, said Fred Alverson, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney for Ohio’s southern district.

It could not be determined immediately whether Rodriguez had obtained an attorney.

The indictment alleges the men got the counterfeit money from one or more sources in Ecuador or Peru. They purportedly waited at the border of the two countries for a courier to deliver a package containing counterfeit currency from a co-conspirator identified as “Daniel.”

After sneaking the fake currency through U.S. Customs, they passed it off at hundreds of stores between January and September 2010 during “road trips” to several states, including Ohio, the indictment says.

Uscategui would rent cars from locations including a rental company at the Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport for the trips, “cutting the bottom of the seat headrests in order to remove the foam, then stuffing the headrests with counterfeit U.S. currency,” authorities allege. On the trips, Uscategui would remain in the car, while Rodriguez would go into the stores to pass the fake bills, the indictment alleges.

The two are accused of passing about 100 counterfeit notes in the Cincinnati area in a two-day period in July 2010, including swapping two $100 bills at home improvement stores for $10 gift cards and real currency.

If convicted on all four counts, Usgategui and Rodriquez each could be sentenced to up to 65 years in prison.