‘MAJOR CRIME RING’
3 ARRESTED, 1 SOUGHT IN $125G CHECK ‘WASHING’ SCHEME
YEADON » Three men are in custody and a fourth is being sought in a complex “check washing” scheme that Police Chief Anthony Paparo said could ultimately be found to have impacted hundreds of victims.
“This is what I want to call a major crime ring,” Paparo during a press conference at police headquarters Wednesday morning. “I’m leaning towards the fact that this is a ring because this is a very elaborate scheme.”
Charged Wednesday were Zyier Williams, 37, of Philadelphia, Naod Tsegay, 21, of Darby, Rhashaun J. Freeman, 21, of Folcroft, and Basir Brown, 19, of an unknown address. Brown remains at large, Paparo said, but a warrant has been issued for his arrest.
They are facing hundreds of state counts of theft, forgery, receiving stolen property, conspiracy and related offenses, and may additionally be facing federal charges for tampering with the U.S. mails.
The three suspects were arrested following a traffic stop Tuesday morning by Detective Ferdie Ingram, Paparo said, who just happened to spot a suspect vehicle captured on video in June that law enforcement had been searching for and pulled it over.
Tsegay, the driver, “lost a little bit of height” after he was searched, Paparo said. He allegedly had 59 stolen checks hidden in one shoe and 19 debit cards hidden in the other. He is facing more than 600 counts alone, according to online court records.
Officers also recovered seven “washed” blank checks in the vehicle stop, ink removal materials, marijuana, cash and a fully loaded Glock 9mm semi-automatic pistol found in a bag at the feet of Williams, the front-seat passenger, according to Paparo.
A point of origin for the weapon has not yet been determined, Paparo said, but it has not been reported stolen. A fourth passenger in the vehicle who investigators determined was not involved in the alleged scheme was not charged.
Police were alerted to the alleged scheme in February, when a resident reported that a check they had sent for a mortgage payment was diverted to another location and cashed for about $2,500, Paparo said. That victim filled out a fraud report, which was soon joined by numerous others.
Paparo said his department has so far identified 22 victims of check fraud just in Yeadon, some of which had more than one check cashed, including a borough employee, but the alleged scheme also extends to other areas of Delaware County, as well as Philadelphia, Chester and Montgomery counties. He said police have so far accounted for more than $125,000 in losses traceable to the scheme, but that figure will undoubtedly grow as the investigation continues.
Paparo said the suspects may have been involved in robbing postal workers to obtain keys to blue public mail drop boxes. One such key found on the suspects was taken from southwest Philadelphia based on the serial number, he said.
Paparo said the alleged coconspirators would pull up to a box in a vehicle in the early morning hours, open it, dump the contents of an interior white plastic bin into the vehicle, replace the bin and relock the box to cover their tracks, then drive away, all in a manner of seconds.
Once at another location, they would then go through the letters looking for envelopes containing checks, said Paparo. The suspects would allegedly then “wash” the checks using automobile antifreeze and toothbrushes, fill in a new amount ranging from $2,500 to $7,000, and forge the check owner’s signature.
“Let’s say you send a birthday check to little Johnny for $25,” Paparo said. “They would take that check, they would wash off everything that you’ve written on that check, and then they’d write in their own amount, their own ‘pay to the order of’ and they’d sign your name, and then they’d go and they’d get cash.”
The method of cashing the checks involved a second step that Paparo said could not have been accomplished but for the simple greed of people who essentially made themselves willing participants in identity theft.
“Their enterprise involved individuals on Instagram who responded to ads that
they (the suspects) posted as a way to make easy money,” said Paparo. “Individuals would respond to the Instagram post, then the suspects would meet the individuals at a store, a parking lot, a McDonald’s, wherever, and they would hand over their debit card with their pin number, their information, sometimes their Social Security number, to these suspects.”
The alleged conspirators would then deposit the bogus checks into the bank accounts of those willing participants so they could withdraw most of the check’s new value, leaving the debit card owners a small percentage of the fraudulent amount still in the account, maybe $500 or so, Paparo said.
Paparo said at least one of the suspects would flaunt the amount of money he was making from the enterprise by showing off luxury goods and trips.
This complex scheme was harder to detect or trace than most check fraud cases, Paparo
said, because the alleged perpetrators never entered a bank and were wearing masks due to the pandemic, so the grainy video of ATM machines made identifying them impossible. The transactions also appeared on the surface to be legitimate, he said, adding another level of difficulty to catching the suspects.
Yeadon police began surveillance of mail boxes with the help of U.S. Postal inspectors and other agencies, and were able to get video of one of the alleged suspects in action dumping the contents of a mailbox June 1, Paparo said. This gave investigators a clear shot of a license plate registered to a person in Folcroft, as well as the make and model of a vehicle to be on the lookout for, Paparo said. That finally paid off Tuesday.
“The individuals on the 59 checks that are present here, these individuals don’t even know that they’re a victim yet,” said Paparo. “They may have gotten a notice from a family member or a mortgage company or a utility company that their check was not received, which creates all kinds of headaches for people here – their credit and their bills and everything else. They don’t even know that their check is sitting there in front of me. We will be contacting you – you are a victim of this crime.”
Paparo said it is unclear just how many other people may be involved in the alleged scheme at this point, but there could easily be hundreds of victims out there and he has “no doubt’ that more arrests will be coming. Paparo added that police also now know the names of the 19 people who allegedly handed over their debit cards to the suspects and would be knocking on their doors as the investigation continues.
Detectives recovered cell phones from the suspects and are in the process of getting a warrant to review their contents, Paparo said, which may reveal additional information about the alleged scheme.
Some of the checks looked very clean, said Paparo, like they had just come out of a
check book. The alleged perpetrators were not too concerned with matching a signature, he added, and even spelled the borough employee’s name incorrectly on two checks she said were used to steal approximately $15,000 from her account.
That employee, who identified herself only as “Sheila,” said she discovered she was a victim in March or April after her mortgage company alerted her to a missed payment. She said the other check was originally a $15 payment on her life insurance that became a check for $7,300.22.
“I couldn’t believe it,” she said. “It was horrible to see my two checks all whited out, all cleaned up and re-written with my name spelled wrong for thousands of dollars … But I was upset with my bank too, because I want to know how did it get through?”
Sheila, who had never missed a mortgage payment in 30 years, said she filed a police report and then contacted her bank. Santander did refund the missing money, but she said there has been other fallout: She had to close that account and destroy her checks; she does not currently have a checking account, and every other bill that was paid out of that account had late fees attached because it was frozen.
“Everything was late because they locked my account and I couldn’t get in touch with everybody in time to say, ‘My account is on freeze,’ so when they went in to get their money out, the account on was on lock-down,” she said. “I don’t appreciate it, I really don’t. I don’t appreciate somebody just going into my account and just helping themselves to the money that I worked really hard for. That money didn’t just go in there overnight. That money had been in there for a while.”
Paparo and county District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer, who was also on hand Wednesday, both credited Detective Leah Cesanek and Detective Sgt. Jay Houghton for the hours upon hours of oldfashioned police work it took to bring in the suspects.
“I can’t say enough about the work that these two detectives have done on this case,” said Stollsteimer. “It’s not like TV where it all happens in 30 minutes … They have worked for months on this case and everybody in Yeadon, everybody in this region, ought to be thankful that these guys are on the street.”
Paparo does not think this alleged scheme was cooked up by the four suspects identified Wednesday and is not limited to them. He cautioned parents to be mindful if they happen to see a bottle of antifreeze and some toothbrushes nearby in their own children’s bedroom.
He also advised anyone who may have been notified by a family member, lending institution or utility that a check was “lost in the mail” to check their bank statements and make sure they have not been a victim as well.
Paparo said Wednesday morning that all three defendants had refused to speak to investigators. That changed after the press conference and they were willing to give statements, he said. All three were expected to be arraigned by video Wednesday evening before those statements were taken and would then be transferred to the county jail in Concord.
Court documents indicate Williams and Tsegay have preliminary hearings scheduled for June 29, while Freeman is scheduled for a preliminary hearing July 6, all before Magisterial District Judge W. Keith Williams II.