Multi-million dollar bogus check ring busted by Valley police in LA

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Twelve arrests in Los Angeles put an end to a multi-million dollar check cashing conspiracy, investigated for almost a year by Coalinga police.

"They're the ones that do the research, they recruit other people to cash these checks," said Coalinga Police Chief Cal Minor about the suspects.

Investigators say the suspects cashed almost 10,000 checks over the last four years -- hitting locations in five states. But it was their visits to the Central Valley that tripped them up.

Investigators say these crews traveled all across California and four other states every weekend, and the scam worked like clockwork for years until they scammed the wrong people.

Walking into a police car in handcuffs is not the way these suspects planned to spend their weekend. For four years, they've used Friday, Saturday and Sunday as travel days -- criss-crossing California to cash bogus payroll checks, according to Coalinga police.

"That's why we picked [Thursday to make arrests]," Minor said. "Because we figured they would be at these residences we identified and if they were going to start what we call a check run, they would be leaving this afternoon."

The scheme was fairly simple, but the scale was huge. Investigators say the suspects researched the communities they were targeting, printed out checks claiming to be from legitimate local businesses, and sent crews out to cash them at 15 to 20 small businesses, always after banks closed each weekend.

Just last weekend, they hit Gong's Market and Best Buy Liquor in a Sanger strip mall, tricking clerks into cashing almost $1,500 worth of checks.

"Everything looked real," said Jujhar Singh, the owner at Best Buy Liquor. "Everything original. Signed, everything. Perfect."

Singh cashed a check supposedly from Harris Farms Ranch.

Police serving search warrants Thursday in L.A. found similar checks not yet filled in. Each check was usually written for less than $500 to avoid drawing attention, but five people at a time would go cash them. That's what happened at a Coalinga market where the scheme started to unravel last November.

Police arrested five people for fraudulent checks and traced their roots back to L.A. But they didn't yet know how serious it was.

"It took six months from the November search warrant to realize the depth of their criminal enterprise," Minor said.

When an Action News reporter tried talking to the suspects under arrest, they couldn't understand.

"You guys want to say anything about what happened?" the reporter asked.

"No English," one of the suspects said.

Coalinga police say they're all from Honduras and even after cashing more than $4 million in bogus checks, they still lived meagerly. Back in their home country, though, investigators say someone is living the high life.

"We found some money transfers, wire transfers, that we're going to have to track down and we believe that's where the money's actually going," Minor said.

In all, almost 10,000 checks were cashed.

The state attorney general's office is now planning to prosecute the suspects in L.A. County.