From ID-shop.com

GENESEO, NY — The Geneseo Police Department has increased its scrutiny of college student alcohol purchases.

Ryan M. Lang, a senior investigator with the state Department of Motor Vehicles fraud unit, has assisted the Geneseo police on two occasions this semester with checks of student identification cards/drivers’ licenses. Lang is an expert in spotting phony drivers’ license identification credentials from New York as well as other states.

Working in Geneseo for just nine hours, Lang and Geneseo Police Chief Eric Osganian made 34 arrests of alcohol purchasers allegedly using fake identification cards.

The checks occurred in two sessions, Sept. 5 from 9 p.m. to midnight and Sept. 18 from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. at the Inn Between, Vital Spot, Statesmen and Sugar Creek. The liquor stores on South and Center streets were also patrolled, but yielded no arrests.

In the taverns, Lang, assumes the undercover role of a “bouncer” who approaches alcohol purchasers to look at their identification. At Sugar Creek, Lang positioned himself in a vehicle in the parking lot.

As purchasers left the store with their beer, he approached them, showing his credentials and asking to see their identification. In each situation, Chief Osganian or another officer was positioned close by, but out of sight, in the unmarked car, ready to be immediately on the scene to make the arrest when radioed by Lang.

Lang uses no technology in determining whether or not a license is counterfeit, but he is highly skilled in recognizing flaws indicative of a counterfeit origin.

He also is well versed in using license photographs to ferret out legitimate licenses which are not with their real owner.

One fraudulent scenario has an older, similar looking friend or sibling “losing” his or her license, then giving the old license to their friend, sister or brother.

The tavern arrests were for using a false i.d., made before the suspect had a chance to consume the alcoholic beverage. The Sugar Creek arrests were for both illegal ID and illegal possession, since the suspect was carrying the purchased 12 or 24 pack at the time of the arrest. Illicit i.d. cards and the beer packs are confiscated on the spot. (Keystone is apparently the beer of choice among underage drinkers.)

Osganian noted that the tavern and business managers have been very cooperative with the investigators.

Many of the fake licenses are out-of-state with Connecticut and Vermont in particular abundance, and some Massachusetts as well. In actuality, SUNY Geneseo has very few students from New England.

Osganian has learned from interviews with subjects that a number of the fake licenses were manufactured by a common source Toronto dealer who specialize in fraudulent identification documents and charges $50.

“Looking at these licenses, they’re pretty authentic looking,” Osganian noted. “They’ve got everything official including the bar code in back.”

About 90 percent of the arrests are SUNY Geneseo students ages 18, 19 and 20, Osganian reports. There have been a few other young adults, but no persons of high school age.

The level of Lang’s expertise in discovering fake licenses was even appreciated by one of the arrested students who, while his ticket was being written up, muttered, “Man, that guy is good!”

A conviction on possession of a fictitious license charge will typically yield a $100 fine for the defendant in village court, supplemented with the $85 surcharge. Possession of alcohol is typically a $50 fine.

“We’d like to do this again, if [Lang] can come back down here,” Osganian said. “It’s a good thing to take these fake licenses off the streets.”