By Thacher Schmid
Aug 18, 2007
The strange men showed up on a Friday late in the afternoon, when migrant farm workers often come to El Tigre, a Latino grocery store on Oregon Way, to cash payroll checks.
They wore dirty, disheveled clothing, like many of the workers of rural Mexican origin who use places like El Tigre to cash checks. They bought food and clothing and bickered about having money for lunch after paying rent.
They had payroll checks apparently issued that day, June 8, by the Kelso Foster Farms chicken processing plant, plus Mexican consular ID cards and detailed knowledge of the area and Foster Farms operations. When El Tigre owner Antonio Aguilar questioned one, the man calmly said he hung chickens on the production line.
Neri Aguilar felt something wasn't right that day, she said last week, because such a large group of Foster Farms employees has never showed up at the same time, and never all strangers. She couldn't sleep that night, but she felt better after she and her husband went to Fibre Federal Credit Union the next morning and a teller assured them the checks were real, she said.
The next day the men came back and cashed more checks. A week later, Antonio Aguilar got a phone call back from the credit union, and Neri Aguilar watched the color drain from her husband's face.
"Is it the checks?" she asked.
The couple lost $21,442, and El Tigre teetered on the brink of bankruptcy before the Aguilars took out a second mortgage on their home.
That weekend, El Tigre was victimized by what authorities now think is a sophisticated, regionwide check forgery ring that also hit three other local businesses: Cowlitz Bank, Kelso grocery Tienda El Jarocho and 'Til Payday, a Longview payday loan store.
The group seems to target businesses that employ large populations of Hispanic immigrants. Locally, police say, the crooks cashed 74 counterfeit Foster Farms checks and walked off with over $52,000 -- possibly the most damaging local check fraud case ever.
"This is the first time we've dealt with anything like this," said Kelso police Detective Mark Berglund, one of three local law enforcement officials involved.
Targeting businesses
Foster Farms vice president of human resources Tim Walsh refused to share any information about the company's own investigation of the fraud.
"It's no bad reflection on our company, it just happened to be our checks that they forged," Walsh said.
Several investigators said it's clear the ring is targeting businesses that employ large numbers of Mexican immigrants.
"They dress the part of the field workers, and they play the part," said Detective Miguel Sanchez of Walla Walla police, one of several Northwest jurisdictions where similar crimes have occurred.
The Walla Walla crime involved two businesses that employ heavily Hispanic populations, Sanchez said.
"That seems to be the theme," said Longview police Detective Doug Kazensky, when asked about a possible focus on Latino migrants. "It at least makes sense to me to pick businesses that are associated with Hispanic or Latino workers to draw less suspicion."
"What would happen a lot of times, the suspects, who all happen to be Hispanic, would just file in with legitimate workers," Kazensky said. "They would come on payday, just around closing and basically glide through real quick."
"What's really odd is they all have local information," said Debbie, 'Til Payday's manager, who declined to give her last name. "They somehow came up with local addresses, to the point that one of the local names and addresses matched up with a local customer of ours that had cashed a check in 2000."
"It's not like they come into town in one day and do this. It was a big, complicated thing, I think."
Police have a sizeable amount of evidence, including fingerprints, video surveillance images, copies of the IDs used and the checks themselves. However, there are few strong leads, Berglund said.
Weak spot
Migrant farm workers from rural Mexico, some of whom speak indigenous languages such as Zapoteca or Mixteca and have no driver's license or state ID, frequently use smaller, family-owned Latino stores like El Tigre or Tienda El Jarocho to cash payroll checks because they can't get or don't want regular bank accounts.
"There's a lot of people who come from the fields, it's really hard for them to cash a check at the banks," Neri Aguilar said.
It's difficult for undocumented immigrants to open a banking account. Fibre Federal Credit Union, for example, does not issue bank accounts even if a person has consular ID cards or U.S. work permits (green cards), though a current driver's license and state ID card will suffice, said Shelly Buller, Fibre Federal's vice president of member services.
In the June 8-11 forgery spree, most checks were cashed using Mexican consular ID cards, which probably were fake, police say. The crooks, an estimated 15 to 20 Hispanic males appearing to be in their 30's and 40's, gave fake local addresses and phone numbers.
The paper checks the ring used were of top quality, looking uncannily real. They appeared to be written off the Foster Farm's account at Cowlitz Bank, down to the correct account number. Two other keys to the group's success have been getting out fast -- they were long gone before banks or police realized something was amiss -- and knowing many immigrants cash checks with little or no ID.
Fibre Federal Credit Union's Larry Hoff said the credit union does not verify the validity of checks brought in by business owners such as Antonio and Neri Aguilar of El Tigre, leaving that up to the Federal Reserve.
Hoff, the chief executive officer, agreed the checks were of high quality. While he wasn't privy to what the Fibre Federal teller told the Aguilars June 9, the teller would have checked basics such as whether there was a fraud alert, or money in the Foster Farms account. Hoff said.
"We as an organization can't assure that a check is good in any regard," Hoff said. "We called Cowlitz Bank (on June 9) and there was no fraud alert, and the account was good and there was a balance. That's a step farther than we normally do for batch deposits."
It appears the suspects, or another group with the same techniques, also hit the Tri-Cities area, Milton-Freewater, Ore. and Sandpoint, Idaho. Police think the cases are linked because they share a similar modus operandi and all involved high-quality forgeries.
One suspect, Alejandro Luna Medrano, who has legal residency status, is in custody in Umatilla County in Oregon, Detective Sanchez said.
Sanchez said that a Tri-Cities business, Los Tapatios, also operates the Wayside Market in Umatilla County.
"When (the suspect) walked in to the Wayside, the owner was there, he confronted him, he ran out of the business and through some fields and orchards and chased him down. This guy was so incensed, because big companies, when they lose $15,000, it's no biggie. When a family-owned Latino business loses that much money -- a couple of the family-owned businesses here are facing bankruptcy."
Walla Walla is trying to extradite Medrano. The Seattle offices of the FBI and Secret Service declined to say whether they are involved in the investigation, but Kazensky said Longview police are "looking at" the possibility of federal involvement now.
"It could be so many different agencies' jurisdiction," said Special Agent Robbie Burroughs, spokeswoman for the FBI's Seattle regional office.
Cash without IDs
Tienda El Jarocho only got scammed on two checks, totaling about $1,400, perhaps because the store requires a state ID. Manager Ruby Ordinola said the Kelso business cashes about 400 checks per month, and she wasn't sure how those two slipped through.
"We ask for ID and a phone number, and usually we know our customers and we have their ID on file. So that's why I don't know what happened (with these two checks) because there was no ID to those checks," Ordinola said.
The crime has caused changes at the businesses that were hit. Foster Farms switched from Cowlitz Bank to Wells-Fargo -- the company's main bank nationally -- for its local checking since the scam, Walsh confirmed.
El Tigre now will cashes checks only for known individuals and is considering additional security steps, such as installing more in-store cameras.
Tienda El Jarocho no longer cashes Foster Farms checks at all, and 'Til Payday is more vigilant.
"It's really hard, now, to have a Hispanic man come in here with a check," said Debbie, the manager at the payday loan store. "I'm going to verify everything on it."
Cowlitz Bank referred questions to police investigators, but Detective Blaine said Cowlitz Bank, which cashed 25 fakes, accepted some without requiring any ID at all.
"Some of the checks and balances normally in place weren't necessarily followed to a tee that day," Detective Berglund said.
The Til Payday manager said the ring brought in the only Foster Farms checks her business cashed that weekend, 17 in all, and she feels "disgusted."
"It's really a sad situation that happened," she said. "The Hispanic population that we see come in here are usually a very hard-working population. We have a lot of very trustworthy Hispanic men."
"Now, I don't trust any of them."
The crime left a bitter taste in Neri Aguilar's mouth as well. Recalling years of arriving for work at 5 a.m., Aguilar said she and her husband lost some of their passion. "All my effort, in a few hours -- gone."
Source: The Daily News
hola lei tu reportaje de esta estafa y yo se de donde bienen esta banda de estafadores ya los e reportado a la policia y no me hacen caso solo te puedo decir que toda esta gente esta por todo el pais y estan bien conectados buscan empresas donde hay muchos latinos y como dices en realidad buscan negocios de latinos me da coraje por que por esta classe de gente nos ven mal pero te voy a dar datos y tu sabras si se los das al detective solo espero k esta vez si hagan algo esta gente se encuentra concentrada en california arizona texas north carolina en washington a lo largo del pais en compton ca es donde se multiplican los cheques falsos y luego los mandan por correo yo reporte un pequeno grupo de estas personas aqui en charlotte pero solo los pusieron sobre aviso esta gente vivia en este domicilio 4600 central ave #c en charlotte en 4628mismo domicilio #d y tienen otro depto pero fueron a buscarlos e ellos preguntaron sitenian cheques falsos esta gente se estan moviendo de acsa ahi mismo en charlotte traen carros de california todos son de puebla y ahi conocieron gente de honduras hombres y mujeres este grpo son como 20 personas cada dia de pago se juntan en los carros y van a diferrentes partes del pais este grupo estafa por todo ese lado del pais otro grupo se encuentra en chraleston se juntan con ellos ya que solo salen a trabajar los dias de pago me se algunos nombres el jefe de este grupo charal, tepcil juan pena,chapulin alfredo sanchez, fantasma efren, sanchez,el bombo salvador bello el bolsas viridiana g, grisiliana g. yenny bello(menor de edad), ricardo el chino el carreton ,y muchos mas el que les hace y les manda los trabajos es el mere conocido como el enano este vive en compton ca la mayoria de esta gente son de california quieren telefonos se los puedo dar todos estos trabajan con nombres falsos mas de dos con consulares y targetas de recidencia los que estafaraon la tienda el tigre son de california de ocmpton es el grupo del cebollas trae mucha gente el grupo del aguila esta en charlestaon son muchisimos los que andan por ahi pero eh buscado por muchos lugares y no encuentro nada les di direcciones a la policia de aqui y solo los alertaron por que no hacen su trabajo bien por lo mismo esta gente cada fin de semana manda y manda dinero a su casa aya en mexico mandann muchas remesas grandes ojala y puedas hacer algo por que de verdad esto no esta bien esta gente toda indocumentada se pasea por todo el pais y no le hace nada la justicia que para los malos de veradda no hay castigo
Posted by: nadie me hace caso | September 08, 2007 at 12:00 AM