Last stop for fake TTC tokens

Police have charged three Toronto brothers after cracking a counterfeit operation that produced an estimated $1.2-million worth of illegal subway tokens.

The men, aged 59, 54 and 48, were arrested at a home in East York in a raid by Toronto Police and special constables from the Toronto Transit Commission.

Investigators estimate that the suspects produced about $400,000 worth of fake tokens a year for the past three years.

The bogus coins were manufactured using a press that stamped them out from strips of aluminum.

They could not be used in subway station turnstyles, police said, but were easily passed off as legitimate when placed in fare boxes located in buses and at the stations.

During the raid, police also discovered a plaque that the men had made to commemorate the minting of their 400,000th counterfeit token.

The suspects have each been charged with fraud over $5,000, and with manufacturing and possessing fake tokens.