COLUMBUS, Ga. –A former credit union employee has been charged in connection with an alleged case of a months-long fraud.
Police in Columbus, Ga., said police said they charged former Navy FCU employee Steven Verrett for allegedly using legitimate members at his desk as cover while he deposited counterfeit checks, opened fraudulent vehicle loans and transferred the money himself and several other co-conspirators, WTVM and other news outlets reported.
“It started with a call from North Carolina - a detective in North Carolina. They were working on some check fraud cases and the checks were being funneled through a bank account and the account holder lived in Columbus,” police told WTVM. “We started putting some things together and that led us to the Navy Federal Credit Union employee actually being the one depositing the checks.”
WTVM cited a statement from Columbus police that the first five checks, totaling more than $800,000, were reported stolen from the mail. With assistance from Navy Federal investigators, authorities said detectives found at least eight NFCU accounts involved in fraudulent activities, the report stated.
The Charges
Verrett has been charged with:
- Five counts of third-degree forgery
- Three counts of identity fraud
- Two counts of criminal attempt theft by deception
- Theft by deception
- Financial transaction card forgery
- Computer trespass
- Computer invasion of privacy
- Computer forgery
Arrests of co-conspirators are pending, according to WTVM.
“This arrest is the tip of the iceberg,” a police official told the news outlet. “There will be multiple arrests warrants, for multiple people, per those eight or nine accounts. There’s going to be 15 arrest warrants per account.”
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