Check Wreck
Monday, July 17th, 2006 • Filed under Forgery, Fraud • Comment
Alexis Solis of Anytown U.S.A. send us this tale of treachery by three people who thought they could get away with check fraud by stealing a bank teller’s checkbook and then cashing the checks where the teller worked.
SYLVESTER, Ga. (WSB) — Three people accused of stealing checks in Worth County went to the wrong bank to cash them.
Joyce Powell is a clerk at the Sylvester Banking Company and was at work when a co-worker in the drive-through window told her someone was trying to cash one of her personal checks.
Investigators say the three suspects had just broken into four homes in rural Worth County.
The bank employee stalled the suspects, telling the one presenting the check that he must show some sort of identification. Meanwhile, Powell checked with authorities and learned someone had broken into her house.
The suspects became suspicious and left. But 27-year-old Calvin Barfield had left his driver’s license and Social Security card at the bank. It didn’t take authorities long to track him to a motel in Albany.
Trying to cash the check of a bank teller at the bank where the teller works is about as dumb as you can get. In fact, trying to steal a 747 for the peanuts is only slightly smarter.
Of course, I’m sure these “Dillengers-of-the Year” nominees didn’t realize they were trying to pass those checks at the owner’s place of work. But leaving your IDs at the crime doesn’t make you brilliant either. Why not just leave a set of your fingerprints and a vial of fresh DNA with the teller too, OJ?
Funny Money
Wednesday, March 15th, 2006 • Filed under Forgery, Fraud, Scams • 2 Comments
There’s a great line from the movie “Wall Street,” “The main thing about money…is that it makes you do things you don’t want to do.” Oliver Stone should have added, “and it don’t make you that much smarter either.”
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The counterfeit money looked good, but there was one flaw. There’s no such thing as a one billion dollar bill.
U.S. Customs agents in California said on Tuesday they had found 250 bogus billion dollar bills while investigating a man charged with currency smuggling.
Tekle Zigetta, 45, pleaded guilty to three federal counts of trying to bring cash, phoney bills and a fake $100,000 (57,000 pound) gold certificate into the United States in January.
A man tried to pass off a billion dollar bill as real? Doesn’t he know that Enron tried to do the same thing and look what happened to them?
I’ve never understood the logic of counterfeit money makes because they eventually get so greedy that they always get caught. This guy creates a billion dollar bill, and tries to use it? Who has change for a billion these days? I have a hard time finding change for the vending machine at the bus station.
And how do you trick someone into believing it’s real? The only way to make someone believing it’s truly the billion dollar bill, you’ll have to put George Steinbrenner’s face on it.
She’s Got a Ticket to Die
Thursday, March 2nd, 2006 • Filed under Fraud • 2 Comments
I know, two bad puns in the same vein in the same week is asking for trouble. If you’re upset about it, it’s only because you didn’t think of it. So shut it and just keep reading…
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Kimberly Du landed in a grave situation after police say she tried to avoid traffic charges by faking her death. Du, 36, of Des Moines, faked her death in December, court records show.
Someone claiming to be Du’s mother used a pair of forged documents, including a death notice printed on a newspaper Web site and a letter purported to be signed by Du’s mother, to persuade court officials that Du had died, records show.
Faking your death to get out of parking tickets. Wow, that’s a new one on me. Most of the people I know actually just go all the way with it.
She was actually able to get away with it for awhile. The judge tossed out the charges as soon as she learned of her death. But what was her not-so-fatal mistake? She got pulled over again. She reportedly told the officer, “But officer, I’m supposed to be dead. Whoops.”
She received a felony charge of forgery for faking her mother’s signature, a $50,000 bond and the death penalty. Ahhh, sweet irony…
Passport to Prison
Thursday, March 2nd, 2006 • Filed under Fraud • 1 Comment
Remember when you were a kid and your teacher handed out those graded spelling tests who didn’t study for because you thought, “Hey I’m going to be a rock star/center fielder. I’m not going to need to know how to spell.” Think again…
NICOSIA (Reuters) – You might have the best forgery skills in the world, but it is not much use if you cannot spell.
A Cyprus court jailed Pakistani national Fazal Ur Rehman for eight months for forgery after police spotted spelling mistakes on stamps on an Afghan passport he was carrying — otherwise it was a near-perfect copy, the Cyprus Mail said Wednesday.
I know what you’re thinking. “Hey, those foreign countries especially in the Middle East and Indian regions can get pretty tricky. There’s more consonants in the name of those countries than a bag of Scrabble tiles. Trying to spell one of those things can make an 8-year-old Chinese spelling bee champion faint on site. What could he possibly have screwed up?”
He messed up words like “ministry” spelling it as “menistry,” which as we all know is the name that Cher has for the dark liar of her house where she rebuilds old men into teenage boyfriends.
He also left the “n” out of “government.” Don’t fret, W. did the same thing for his first three years in office.