Middle school students suspected in counterfeit ring

PALMDALE, Calif. - Secret Service agents are investigating 10 middle school students suspected of making counterfeit bills on a home computer and using them to buy food at a school cafeteria, district and federal officials said.

The phony bills looked real enough that they weren't immediately spotted, but a food service director noticed them while counting money at the end of the day. An anonymous tip led school officials to the suspects, aged 11 to 13.

''I've worked in this district 30 years and have never seen anything like this before,'' said Regina Rossall, assistant superintendent for the Westside Union School District. ''Of course, we didn't have sophisticated computers and scanners either.''

The students, whose names were not released, attend Joe Walker Middle School in Quartz Hill and Hillview Middle School in Palmdale. The bills were used at the Joe Walker cafeteria.

School officials notified Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies, who called in the Secret Service, the federal agency that handles counterfeit cases.

Federal agents said that because the students are so young and their operation so unsophisticated, the decision on whether to prosecute them will be left up to local law enforcement.

''More than likely we'll just work with the local police and let them make the determination,'' Brian Nagel, assistant agent in charge of the Secret Service in Los Angeles, told the Los Angeles Daily News. The students have already been disciplined by school officials.

Officials declined to say how much counterfeit money was passed, but said it was not very much.

The money was printed using a home computer, scanner and printer. Computer-generated counterfeit bills are generally poor quality and easily detected, Secret Service spokesman Jim Mackin said.

Counterfeiting is not uncommon in schools. Last year, Los Angeles Unified School District officials reported that thousands of dollars in fake bills had been passed in campus cafeterias. That prompted the district to set up seminars to train cashiers to spot bogus money.