Ten people have been arrested in a scheme that used homeless people to cash fraudulent business checks in the Southeast, U.S. Attorney Bill Killian announced Thursday.
In a news release, Killian said agents with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Knoxville Police Department began making arrests Wednesday.
Police in Georgia said the leaders of the ring recruited people at homeless shelters and soup kitchens in Atlanta, then drove to cities along Interstate 75 into Tennessee and back into Georgia, attempting to cash the checks.
Those arrested include: Larry Seymore, 49, and Leonardo Williams, 29, both of Atlanta, and Preston Franklin Adams, 31, of Conyers, Ga.
Tennessee defendants include Paul W. Durnell, of Maryville; Stevie B. Isaacs, 24, of Mountain City; George M. Eberline, 39; A. Hawkins, 42; Doris Marie Parker, 47; Thomas J. Ruchti, 51; and Wade Freeman Seeber, 23, all of Knoxville.
The investigation was part of “Operation Check Fraud,” an initiative of the Identity Theft Task Force for the Eastern District of Tennessee designed to combat aggressively fake check and bank fraud schemes, the release stated.
In October 2009, authorities in Fort Payne, Ala., arrested suspected scammers from Atlanta and linked the case to similar scams in Soddy-Daisy, according to newspaper archives.
This year, the scam has been spotted in Dalton and Calhoun, Ga., authorities said. Special Agent Stephen Emmett, a spokesman in the FBI’s Atlanta office, told the Times Free Press earlier this year that the scam costs banks across the nation about $8 million a year.