Campus Copy store, worker linked to alleged theft ring

Last Thursday, the U.S. Attorney's office charged Ronald Shapiro -- whose father, Stan, owns the two Campus Copy Centers at 3733 and 3907 Walnut Street -- in connection with a multi-state car theft operation. According to a copy of the indictment, the younger Shapiro, along with a co-worker, aided the ring by making blank copies of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Rhode Island titles to use in registering stolen vehicles. Assistant U.S. Attorney Faithe Moore Taylor said that Ronald Shapiro used equipment from Campus Copy Center to produce the bogus titles. Taylor, who is heading the prosecution, declined to comment further on the case. Though the younger Shapiro is listed in the indictment as an owner of Campus Copy Center, his father refuted that fact, claiming that his son is just an employee. "I am the owner of Campus Copy Center -- the sole proprietor," Stan Shapiro said while reading from a prepared statement. "I am not, and never have been, under the target of any investigation." The elder Shapiro refused to comment on his son's case but explained that "business at Campus Copy Center is being conducting as usual and will continue without interruption." The indictment alleges a complex web of criminal activity that included 20 people from across the east coast. Alleged masterminds Todd Jasper and Donald Truesdale were named in an earlier indictment and are currently awaiting sentencing on charges of conspiring to transport and sell stolen vehicles. This latest indictment named several of their alleged accomplices in the estimated $23 million operation. Several of the defendants named allegedly stole vehicles from shopping malls, airport and hotel parking lots and car dealerships in the Philadelphia area between March 1995 and June 1997. A separate group would then drive the cars to New York, where the vehicle identification numbers were removed and replaced with fraudulent numbers and plates. Finally, the vehicles were driven back to Philadelphia or to Georgia for resale. More than 100 federal, state and local law enforcement officers from Pennsylvania and New Jersey participated in a pre-dawn raid to shut down the operation, as well as another similar, but separate, auto theft ring. Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham, Police Commissioner John Timoney, and representatives from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Internal Revenue Service were among those who announced the indictments.