JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – As many as 30 people have been arrested as part of a gang that paid members of First Community FCU and VyStar CU to use their accounts, deposit phony checks and withdraw as much as $300,000 in cash before the credit unions discovered the checks were bad.
Arrests included the credit union members who willingly participated in the pay-for-access scheme, according to Cary Rosoff, special agent in charge of the case for the U.S. Secret Service. "They reached an agreement with people who had accounts at these credit unions for information on their ATM cards. Then they’d make a bunch of bogus deposits with NSF checks or counterfeit checks to boost the balance on the accounts," Rosoff told The Credit Union Journal yesterday.
More than 75 members of the credit unions may have participated, he said.
Among those charged are, Tony Fudge, believed to be the ringleader, and Antonio Austin, a recruiter of credit union members, as well as Austin’s girlfriend, Denise Griffith, who sold Austin her credit union information.
"All of the criminal activity that we are aware of took place in the Jacksonville area," said Rosoff.
