Thursday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California stated that two people have been charged with multiple federal crimes related to a scheme involving stolen checks and bank fraud.
The department said that Franchesca Calagui, 25, and Dondre Gray, 27, were charged with bank fraud, plot to commit bank fraud, receiving U.S. Treasury checks with a fake endorsement, and helping to commit bank fraud.
The department says that between May 2022 and March 2023, Calagui and Gray, who used to work as an associate banker at JPMorgan Chase Bank, planned to cash stolen U.S. Treasury checks without authorization. This was shown in court papers.
The department said Calagui took advantage of her job at the Deer Valley branch of Chase Bank to get around security measures. She let people who weren’t customers cash fake checks without being checked.
According to the U.S. attorney’s office, the suspects hired people, called “runners,” to make fake endorsements on the stolen checks and take them to be cashed.
The runners were given some of the money in return, but the department said that Calagui and Gray got the majority of the money.
The U.S. attorney’s office said that at least 339 fake Treasury checks worth a total of $850,000 were used in the plot.
The department said that Gray put about $71,000 from the plan into his own bank accounts and that Calagui put about $15,000 into her own account.
The department revealed that Calagui cashed more than $190,000 in fake Treasury checks in the last two weeks of the scheme, before she went on maternity leave.
The defendants could spend up to 30 years in federal jail and be fined up to $1 million for each count, the department said.
An indictment only says that a crime was committed. Until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, all suspects are thought to be innocent.
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