Saturday, April 15, 2000
Forgery scheme alleged
Authorities: Recruiters worked bars
BY Dan Horn
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The young men arrived early at the nightclubs, taking a seat at the bar or a table near the door.
They waited there, sometimes for hours, until they found someone willing to talk. Eventually, the conversation turned to money and how to make it.
They said if they worked together, they would be rich.
Instead, prosecutors say, they are going to prison.
A grand jury indictment Friday accuses those young men — along with 21 others — of participating in a mammoth scheme to defraud Greater Cincinnati banks.
Police and prosecutors say the elaborate scam involved hundreds of fake checks that were cashed at local banks, netting a total of more than $700,000.
“These checks were incredible forgeries,” said Hamilton County Prosecutor Mike Allen. “Most of the checks cleared without a problem.”
Mr. Allen said the Cincinnati cases are large but may be only a small portion of a criminal conspiracy that spans several states.
He said a five-month investigation by the FBI and Cincinnati Police found connections to North Carolina, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Texas and New York.
Although authorities would not say what those connections may be, they did confirm that they suspect the ringleaders are based in New York City.
Mr. Allen said the investigation will continue and more charges are likely.
He said the key to the operation was the recruitment of “average, everyday people” to deposit the bogus checks into their personal bank accounts.
Leon Locke, a detective with the police division's fraud unit, said the participants would wait for the checks to clear and then withdraw the cash.
He said they then split the money, usually 50-50, with the person who recruited them into the operation. The checks ranged from about $16,000 to $43,000.
Prosecutors say the recruiters typically met the newcomers at bars or nightclubs. They flashed money, struck up a conversation and made their pitch.
“They explained the scheme and they brought people into it,” Mr. Locke said. In most cases, he said, the recruiters promised they would not get caught.
Although they may not have been the leaders, Mr. Allen said the new recruits must have known they were breaking the law.
“They are ordinary people who made some bad decisions,” Mr. Allen said. “They were sucked into it because they wanted to get rich quick.”
He said the recruits included four Cincinnati city employees, all from the sanitation department, and a Hamilton County deputy sheriff.
Most of those accused in the indictment are facing one to three years in prison on charges of theft and forgery. Three of those accused of being recruiters — Mi chael Bell, 26, Labbaron Johnson, 30, and Dion Walker, 32 — face charges of complicity to theft and forgery.
Many of the accused have admitted their involvement, said FBI special agent Mike Logan.
He said the charges are another example of a growing problem for banks and law enforcement. As technology improves, he said, it gets easier to produce high-quality counterfeit documents.
“This is a major problem,” Mr. Logan said.
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