EVERETT — Police and U.S. Secret Service agents believe they have taken down a major identity theft and forgery ring involving at least a dozen suspects and more than 100 victims.

“It was a pretty well-run network,” said Everett police Sgt. Mark Thacker, who oversees the department’s financial crimes unit.

The number of victims could grow as experts analyze computer hard drives and video surveillance footage from businesses where the suspects tried to get money. As of Friday evening, authorities estimated more than $45,000 had been stolen, but said that amount is likely to grow.

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Evidence is being examined at the Secret Service’s Electronic Crimes Task Force lab in Seattle.

Many of the victims — both individuals and businesses — are from Everett, but the center for the operation was traced to a hotel room in Shoreline.

That’s where police and the Secret Service found what amounted to a ID-theft factory Thursday.

“These labs tend to be mobile,” Thacker said. “They go from hotel to hotel.”

The room contained a computer, two laptops, laminating paper, card stock, check stock and a hot laminator machine along with identification, checks and bags of mail that had been stolen. Also seized were more than 100 licenses and other IDs, roughly 20 hard drives and numerous other media storage devices, such as thumb drives and memory chips.

Six defendants made appearances at bail hearings Friday afternoon. The group included Michael J. Suryan, 53, who was identified in court papers as a ringleader. Police allege he was the “ID theft lab operator,” the one who created the phony identifications, bogus checks and other documents. He was arrested for investigation of 38 counts of financial fraud. Bail was set at $200,000.

Police found at least 10 pieces of forged identification that included his photograph with someone else’s personal information.

They also recovered at least 150 counterfeit checks inside the room.

Some of the defendants could be charged under federal laws, Thacker said.

In October, Everett detective Jamie French began investigating Suryan’s alleged counterfeit and theft ring. Since the case involved victims in so many cities, Everett police asked the Secret Service to join the investigation, Thacker said.

On Thursday, a Secret Service agent tracked Suryan to the motel room where he had been living the past two weeks.

Police then located two other suspects at a Shoreline supermarket where they allegedly tried to pass a bad check. Both were arrested. While being handcuffed, one woman dropped a suspected counterfeit check made out for more than $400 and tried to hide it, according to court papers.

Thacker said such large-scale identity-theft operations typically include people with different roles.

There are the collectors, who steal mail and break into cars or homes in search of identification. Often, they are paid in drugs.

The lab operator creates the phony documents.

And there are runners who try to pass the bad checks and typically get a percentage of the cash they receive.

Police believe they’ve identified many of the players.

“This is a long investigation,” Thacker said. “A big, big, thick binder.”

Washington state ranked 18th per capita in terms of identity theft crimes in 2010, according to a national survey.

WICHITA, Kan. — The tug-of-war between two women who for more than a decade claimed the same identity will begin to wind down this week, when the alleged impostor is expected to plead guilty in a case that put a face on the problem of “total identity theft” in the United States.

Benita Cardona-Gonzalez faces a change-of-plea hearing Monday in federal court in Wichita to an amended charge of possessing fraudulent identification documents. Prosecutors have said her lawyer has told them and the court that Cardona-Gonzalez had accepted a plea offer.

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The Mexican national is accused of completely assuming the persona of Candida L. Gutierrez, a Houston elementary school teacher who first went public with her plight in a story by The Associated Press. Gutierrez learned her identity had been hijacked when a mortgage application was rejected more than a decade ago. All the while, Cardona-Gonzalez claimed it was Gutierrez who had stolen her identity.

The case personified the problem of “total identity theft,” a form of the crime in which con artists go beyond financial fraud to assume many other aspects of another person’s life.

Gutierrez told the AP on Friday that she plans to come to the woman’s sentencing later this year to recount for the court what impact identity theft has had on her life – it wasn’t limited to opening fraudulent credit and bank accounts. Cardona-Gonzalez is accused of assuming Gutierrez’s persona completely, using it to get a job, a driver’s license, a mortgage and even medical care for the birth of two children.

Both women claimed they were identity theft victims and sought to get new Social Security numbers. The Social Security Administration turned down Gutierrez’s request, instead issuing a new number to the impersonator. And, in an ironic twist, Gutierrez was forced to file her federal income tax forms using a special identification number usually reserved for illegal immigrants.

Each year, Gutierrez has to go to the Social Security Administration to prove her identity and clear her employment record. She spends hours on the phone with creditors and credit bureaus and has yet to clean up her credit history. She says her tax records are a mess.