Check fraud rings targeting private residents and businesses

Thursday, July 24, 1997 | 2:01 a.m.

"They are pretty sophisticated," said Detective Fred Schoenfeldt, with the Carson City Sheriff's Department. "In the two years that I have worked in detectives, I've never seen anything of this magnitude.

"I don't know if it is the same ring or two different rings."

The group is stealing private citizens' checks and credit cards out of their mailboxes and generating false payroll checks by computer, Schoenfeldt said. At least four businesses have had checks duplicated, authorities said.

The private checks are then washed with acetone and bleach to remove the handwriting - including the name of the business the check is written to and the amount, Schoenfeldt said.

A new name is written in to coincide with fake identification cards self-generated by the group. Credit cards are also being reported stolen out of the mail.

"With the checks, the mailbox flag is up so it is pretty easy," Schoenfeldt said. "But with the credit cards it's pretty much hit and miss."

About 10 cases have been reported in two weeks, said Detective Bob White. No specific neighborhoods are being targeted.

"It's happening all over town," Schoenfeldt said.

None of the checks is being written for large sums. The largest to date is $250. So far, between $1,000 and $2,000 have been stolen through this process, authorities said.

But the computer generated payroll checks - copied from examples of the businesses checks - are in sums closer to $900, White said. A total of fake business checks circulated is about $10,000, White said. Whatever business, such as a bank or casino, that cashes them becomes the victim because the checks are fictitious.

Detectives are working some leads on the cases.