Several arrested in $8 million counterfeit check fraud scheme
NEW YORK – Federal charges have been filed against 14 defendants for engaging in a bank fraud scheme involving deposits of thousands of counterfeit checks and withdrawals of at least $8 million in fraudulent proceeds. Seven defendants were arrested Thursday. Two additional defendants were arrested – one in Buffalo, New York, and one in Lawrenceville, Georgia. Five defendants are still at large.
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said: “As alleged, for three years the 14 defendants charged in this multimillion-dollar check-kiting scheme attempted to fly under the radar and conceal their illicit activity through false identification documents, counterfeit checks, and sham companies. But law enforcement uncovered their alleged bank fraud, and now they will be made to answer for their actions.”
ICE HSI Special Agent-in-Charge James T. Hayes, Jr. said: “The defendants arrested today are alleged to have perpetrated a scheme involving the theft of at least $8,000,000 from 15 financial institutions. HSI New York’s El Dorado Task Force, the largest financial investigation task force in the world, partners with prosecutors and law enforcement agencies every day to detect and dismantle transnational criminal organizations working to steal from financial institutions and disrupt America’s economic system.”
From approximately June 2009 through November 2012, the defendants and their co-conspirators allegedly engaged in a bank fraud scheme in which they created counterfeit checks, deposited those counterfeit checks into bank accounts they had opened in the names of sham companies in order to fraudulently inflate the balances in those accounts, and then withdrew funds from those bank accounts before the financial institutions were able to determine the fraudulent nature of the checks. The scheme entailed the deposit of thousands of counterfeit checks into bank accounts at approximately 15 different banks, resulting in aggregate losses to those banks of at least $8 million
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