Pinellas Makes Arrests In Counterfeit Check Ring

As part of a Pinellas County Sheriff's Office investigation, authorities have begun rounding up more than 100 people they say are involved in counterfeit check-cashing rings, including three men taken into custody in Tampa this morning.

According to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office Jail Web site, the three men are:

• Alexander Jackson Sr., 55, who was charged with two counts of racketeering and one count of conspiracy to commit racketeering. His bail was set at $1 million.

• Alexander Jackson Jr., 36, who was charged with two counts of racketeering and one count of conspiracy to commit racketeering. His bail was set at $100,000.

• Levaughn Boggs, 53, who was charged with racketeering and conspiracy to commit racketeering. His bail was set at $100,000.

All three men remained in Orient Road Jail today.

The two-year investigation, dubbed "Operation Check Mate," was described as the largest racketeering case of its kind conducted by the Pinellas sheriff's office, and it was estimated to have cost Florida banks millions of dollars. Seven other law enforcement agencies were involved in the investigation.

Detectives have identified 350 counterfeit check transactions totaling more than $700,000. The counterfeit check-cashing rings started in Tampa and spread throughout the state, investigators said. The rings are thought to have been in operation since the early 1990s.

Investigators say this is how the check-cashing rings worked:

People known as "runners" cashed the counterfeit checks at Florida bank. In February 2007, authorities began surveillance on the runners and discovered that group leaders recruited runners to steal mail from business park mailboxes and to acquire identification cards for cashing the counterfeit checks.

The mail was stolen to obtain bank account information from business checks. Those checks and the stolen ID cards then were given to people known as "printers" who used the items to make counterfeit checks.

The runners were given the fake checks and IDs, were driven to various banks by the co-leaders and given instructions on how to cash the checks. The runners always remained within sight of the co-leaders and spoke to them on cell phones. The runners were told how to conceal evidence -- such as fingerprints on the bogus checks.

When the runners left the bank, they gave the money to the co-leaders and were paid a small percentage in cash at the end of the day. The scheme was repeated throughout the day and on a daily basis.

Because of the scope of the scheme and the number of people involved, prosecutors have asked the case be broken down into phases, investigators said. Each phase represents a bogus check group with its identified leaders, printers and runners. Authorities have uncovered six groups.