Crooks Test Sandy Springs Bank and Grocery Store With Counterfeit Bills

Sandy Springs Capt. Steve Rose provided the following in his weekly crime report

On March 5th a man tried to pass nine one-hundred dollar bills to a Kroger employee at City Walk Shopping Center to purchase that amount in money orders. The employee noticed the money was counterfeit and did not issue the money order.

Unfortunately the employee gave the counterfeit money back to the perpetrator, and he got away.

Bank of America at 6075 Roswell Road had two forgery incidents in the same week. On March 2, officers were called to the bank in reference to a forgery in progress. There they spoke to a woman who presented a check for $25,000 on the Bank of America from Orange Park Mitsubishi in Jacksonville, Fla. After a couple of phone calls, the check was determined to have been stolen and presented to the bank fraudulently. She was arrested.

On March 5th, officers were dispatched to a fraud that was in progress at the same location. A man described as a black male, bald head, and who wore a striped shirt, was passing fraudulent checks.

Before the officers arrived, the man left but then returned because he accidently left his driver’s license on the bank counter. By the time he retrieved it the cops had arrived and detained him.

The check for $4450 was indeed fraudulent. Another check for $2,852 was located inside the suspect’s wallet. That too was fraudulent. He had four Alabama driver’s licenses on him, all with different names but his photo.

The suspect said he was supposed to meet a man who was going to buy his car and make the deal at the bank but he couldn’t explain why he already had the check. He also couldn’t explain why he had a check for $4450 and said he sold the car for $300. He also couldn’t explain why he didn’t know the name of the person who was supposed to be buying the car—saying that he never got the guy’s name or phone number.

They asked him why he had a fraudulent driver’s license. He said the buyer sent it to him. (The more he talked, the less sense it made.) He was later charged with Forgery in the 1st Degree and taken to the Alpharetta intake facility.

These days attempted forgeries are fairly common at local banks, Rose said. The banks always call the business for verification. “It’s always ‘Yes, it was issued’ or ‘No, the check was stolen,’ “ Rose said.