What started as a routine traffic stop on Interstate 40 near Ash Fork ended with two arrests and the seizure of enough materials to produce $1.25 million in counterfeit currency, the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office announced Tuesday.
Leeclark Fallah, 40, of Las Vegas, and Kenneh Pisco, 46, were taken into custody last Tuesday after deputies from the office’s Special Crimes Unit and K9 Unit searched their vehicle and found a suitcase containing a locked safe. Inside were specialized currency-grade paper, ink, gloves and partially printed $100 bills — the components of an active counterfeiting operation.
Investigators determined the two suspects were running what is known as a bill washing scheme — a process in which the ink is chemically stripped from genuine low-denomination bills, which are then reprinted as higher-denomination currency. The technique is particularly difficult to detect because it uses real currency paper, which passes many of the basic tests used to identify fakes.
Authorities said the case was not the product of a tip or a sting operation — just a deputy who followed the clues during a traffic encounter and kept digging. Sheriff David Rhodes credited the Special Crimes Unit with intercepting what he described as a sophisticated operation with the potential to undermine confidence in the country’s currency.
Despite the scheme appearing to cross state lines — a factor that could make it a federal matter — the case is currently being prosecuted at the county level. Fallah and Pisco were charged this week in Yavapai County Superior Court with forgery, criminal possession of a forgery device, money laundering, criminal simulation and fraud. Neither has entered a plea.
