Visa fraud squad swoops down on Bay Area. (San Francisco Bay Area)

Enforcers target L.A., Vancouver counterfeit gangs

After battling credit card counterfeiters in the emerging nations of Southeast Asia and on the crime-ridden streets of Los Angeles, Visa International is now focusing on the Bay Area in its global war against a plague that causes worldwide losses of $400 million a year.

The reason for the local push: Visa officials say that San Francisco is becoming a way station between Vancouver, British Columbia, a North American entry point for counterfeiting gangs from Asia, and Los Angeles, the current world capital for fake credit cards.

In the past several months, the San Mateo-based credit card company has:

* Organized a task force of 10 local bankers to help quash counterfeit operations. The task force is only the second of its kind throughout the nation, based on a similar operation inaugurated in Los Angeles last year.

* Helped the San Francisco Police Department and the Secret Service crack a major counterfeiting ring based in San Francisco. "Visa did a helluva job in locating (counterfeit-related) credit card accounts, educating us as to what to look for, giving us equipment to help find …