A Mahwah couple was arrested in Secaucus Monday morning after NJ Transit authorities caught them using counterfeit monthly passes, NJ Transit spokeswoman Nancy Snyder said Tuesday.

Xyadyan Zheng, 35, and her husband, Emery Wong, 40, were charged with forgery and theft of service after transit officials identified the fake tickets using new UV scanners, Snyder said. The scanners, part of a system-wide crackdown on counterfeit tickets, were instituted Monday.

The Mahwah couple were among six arrests made between 6 and 9:30 a.m. Monday, thanks to the new scanners, Snyder said. “They are ultraviolet scanners that can determine the integrity of the ticket very quickly,” Snyder said. The tickets are now embedded with special coding, similar to airport tickets, she said.

The couple was also sharing just one fraudulent ticket between them, Snyder said.

Though Snyder said she did not know the value of the monthly pass that had been counterfeited, an online search of a monthly pass from Mahwah to Secaucus quoted the ticket’s worth at $245.

The couple was processed in Secaucus and released on their own recognizance, she said.

The arrests Monday were part of a “crackdown” on fake tickets the NJ Transit Authority announced this week. According to a release on the crackdown, more than 200 counterfeit-related arrests have been made since 2010.

“It’s not rampant, but we are being very vigilant in our crackdown,” Snyder said. “We are hoping these arrests will serve as an example for people who are thinking about doing this. The punishments are not worth it.”

“These are not victimless crimes,” NJ Transit Police Chief Christopher Trucillo said in a release. “These criminal acts financially penalize the hundreds of thousands of NJ Transit customers who lawfully utilize our system every weekday.”

Snyder said the commitment to the crackdown and use of the UV scanners is expected to continue.

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