SCITUATE, R.I. (AP) – A Pawtucket man has been arrested on charges of making counterfeit tokens designed to work in casino slot machines from Connecticut to Las Vegas.
Louis B. “The Coin” Colavecchio, 64, faces charges including 10 counts of forgery, counterfeiting or alteration of a trademark. He was released on $25,000 surety bond after appearing in District Court in Providence on Thursday.
Colavecchio is accused of making the tokens, which ranged in value from $5 to $100, at his home and North Providence business, police said. Colavecchio has been convicted of the same crime before, and was sentenced to 27 months in prison in 1998.
Colavecchio’s number was not listed, and he could not be reached for comment by The Associated Press on Saturday.
The charges came after a three-month investigation by multiple state and federal agencies, including the Rhode Island state police and U.S. Secret Service.
Investigators searched Colavecchio’s home and business Wednesday, seizing dozens of tokens, molds, dyes, chemicals, sanders, heavy machine presses, scales and blank strips of metal, police said.
O’Donnell said investigators believe Colavecchio was making tokens for slots machines at Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, both in Connecticut; the Trump Marina Casino, Trump Plaza Casino, Atlantic City Hilton, Taj Mahal Resort, Sands Casino and Caesar’s Palace Casino in New Jersey; and the Borgata and Harrah’s casino in Las Vegas.
Sgt. Kevin Hawkins of the Rhode Island State Police Intelligence Unit said Colavecchio obtain slot tokens from the casinos, then made rubber molds of those tokens.
Then, he would melt the token and send it to a chemist to would determine the mix of metals in it, Hawkins said. Colavecchio would then duplicate that mix, create dyes to match the token pattern and then make his own tokens, Hawkins said.
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