GILROY
– City police found 44 counterfeit checks in a man’s vehicle
Thursday after acting on an alert check-cashier’s tip.
It’s a common scheme in this area to steal money from businesses
by cashing counterfeit checks, but 27-year-old Patricio Guillen
Duran, of transient residency, didn’t get away with it last week at
Gilroy’s Money Market check-cashing store, located at 281 First
St.
GILROY – City police found 44 counterfeit checks in a man’s vehicle Thursday after acting on an alert check-cashier’s tip.
It’s a common scheme in this area to steal money from businesses by cashing counterfeit checks, but 27-year-old Patricio Guillen Duran, of transient residency, didn’t get away with it last week at Gilroy’s Money Market check-cashing store, located at 281 First St.
A friend in Camp-bell had pre-viously warned Money Market manager David Sohrabi about a fictional
San Jose company from which checks were being printed and cashed. The address listed for the company exists – a high-rise building – as does the account number on the check, but the company does not, Sohrabi said.
So when Duran entered Sohrabi’s store Thursday afternoon trying to cash a check from that address, Sohrabi called police immediately.
“I knew it in advance before he came,” Sohrabi said of Duran.
Police arrived before Duran had a chance to leave the store and took him into custody without incident at 1:27 p.m. Upon searching his vehicle, they found 44 more false checks.
The check Sohrabi saw looked like it had been designed and printed on a home computer, the manager said. In his line of work, this type of criminal activity is nothing new or strange.
“What these people do is, they make a bogus account,” Sohrabi said. “They go around the area and cash a bunch of checks … and then they disappear.”
Police charged Duran with burglary – for allegedly entering the store with the intent to steal from it – and forgery, both felonies.
As of late morning Monday, he was still in county jail on $20,000 bail.
