Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies seized guns, badges and police cars Tuesday and arrested the founder of a small San Gabriel Valley transit agency at the center of an investigation spawned by the February crash of a rare Ferrari in Malibu.
Deputies investigating the San Gabriel Valley Transit Authority searched its headquarters in Arcadia, as well as a Monrovia body shop and homes in Bradbury and Whittier owned by board members.
The action comes three months after Swedish businessman Bo Stefan Eriksson totaled a rare Ferrari Enzo on Pacific Coast Highway, telling deputies who responded that he was a deputy commissioner of the agency's police "anti-terrorism unit."
A few minutes later, two men arrived at the scene, identified themselves to deputies as "homeland security" officials and demanded to speak with Eriksson.
The former European video game executive was charged last month with embezzlement, grand theft auto, possession of a firearm and being under the influence of alcohol when he crashed the Ferrari. A one-time business associate was arrested for allegedly using a badge issued by the transit agency to illegally purchase a handgun.
Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said Tuesday that detectives and prosecutors are trying to figure out why the men were connected to an obscure private company that provided rides to disabled people in Monrovia and Sierra Madre.
"This investigation is entirely focused like a laser beam on the San Gabriel Valley Transit Authority Police Department and whether laws have been violated," Whitmore said. "Detectives are seeking to determine what the badges were used for and what is the extent of the agency."
More than 25 deputies began the raids Tuesday about 7 a.m. One of the homes searched -- a large two-story Spanish-style estate in Bradbury -- belonged to agency founder Yosuf Maiwandi.
He was arrested on suspicion of perjury for allegedly signing a document in which he misrepresented his position, Whitmore said.
Authorities have long been perplexed about why the tiny transit authority, which has five buses, needed its own police department. Maiwandi said in the past that the department had six sworn volunteer officers.
Eriksson and other businessmen joined the agency as advisors to help with a wireless camera system for the buses, Maiwandi told The Times in a March interview. The advisors were made deputy police commissioners and received identification cards and badges.
