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The Orange County Sheriff’s Office investigative team got their perps – three of them. Suspected of costing area banks well over $200,000, the men were allegedly sending the monetary fruits of their labors back to West Africa. Moses Brown Makia, Nwosu Putaluanyi and Ike Hypolitea Umeugo were using aliases; but investigators were able to track them through utility records.
The men were involved in a few variations of fraud. In one scam, they would go to a bank and open a new account with a small amount of cash. Then they’d return to the bank to cash a large third-party check. Later, the bank would discover that the cashed check was either stolen or bogus. Banks victimized by this scam included Great Western, Sun Trust and Barnett.
The three also had their hands into the identity-theft business. In some cases they began with a simple change of address form, diverting individuals’ mail to rented boxes. When credit card bills came in, they’d make a call to report the card stolen and ask for a replacement. Then it was off to shop and make purchases on the cards. Trash cans were veritable treasure chests for the crooks, often providing discarded applications for credit cards that victims failed to shred.
A search warrant was executed at the residence of two of the men. Participating were the sheriff’s economic crime squad, the Secret Service and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
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