Federal authorities say a District Heights man had nearly two months between the time of his eviction notice and the day deputies arrived to boot him, but he didn’t take the time to clean up a counterfeiting operation.
Instead, Shango Taylor left when Prince George’s County sheriff’s deputies arrived last fall, telling them he was going to rent a truck to move his furniture, court documents said.
Taylor never returned.
When deputies entered the apartment, they found out why: In plain view was a full-blown U.S. currency counterfeiting operation, documents said.
That’s when they called the U.S. Secret Service, which sent Special Agent Christopher Gojez to the scene, he wrote in a sworn statement filed in Maryland’s federal court.
According to Gojez’s statement, Taylor was notified he was to be evicted from his apartment on 5090 Silver Hill Court on Aug. 7. In the letter sent by the district court, he was told “you may be put out at any time.”
The sheriff’s department didn’t arrive to kick him out until the morning of Sept. 30, documents said.
“It was immediately apparent that counterfeit currency was being manufactured on the premises,” Gojez wrote.
In plain view were several uncut sheets of counterfeit cash, each with notes depicting the different techniques that were used to make the fake images, he wrote. The different types of paper and scanning tools were needed “to produce the highest quality counterfeit notes.”
Counterfeit bills also were scattered across the floor and sitting in open drawers of a desk, according to court documents.
A Maryland state trooper and a Prince George’s County detective found a portable hard drive, Gojez wrote. When it was searched, a Secret Service forensic team discovered images of varying denominations that matched the counterfeit bills found inside the apartment. Also on the hard drive were images of different states’ driver’s licenses and U.S. Treasury checks.
Authorities eventually caught up to Taylor, and he was arrested May 28 and charged with counterfeiting, court records show. Calls to his attorney were not immediately returned Wednesday.
