RBFCU Helps Police Task Force Bust ATM Fraud Ring
Eleven people are arrested and charged with engaging in organized criminal activity.
Texas law enforcement authorities announced last week the arrest of 11 people who allegedly ran a fraud scheme that targeted a Randolph-Brooks Federal Credit Union ATM in the city of Schertz, which led to more than $80,000 in financial losses.
Robert Wagner, commander of the Tri-County Fraud Task Force that investigated the crime, said RBFCU’s fraud department played an indispensable role that led to the arrest of the suspects.
“Randolph-Brooks Federal Credit Union’s fraud department did an outstanding job. They are the ones that caught this. It wasn’t law enforcement,” Wagner said in an interview with CU Times. “Their fraud investigators were able to pull all the records that helped us put the rest of the pieces of the puzzle together. All we did was put the icing on the cake, but they baked the cake.”
A two-year investigation revealed the suspects allegedly persuaded others to open credit union accounts, which were used to deposit counterfeit checks. The suspects withdrew the funds and reported fraud on the account in an attempt to have the credit union issue a reimbursement.
In order for the scheme to work, those who were persuaded to open RBFCU accounts or already had accounts, agreed to provide their account information with the suspects in exchange for “quick cash,” Wagner said. This is otherwise known as first-party or first-person fraud.
Wagner noted the fraud ring targeted RBFCU’s ATM in the city of Schertz almost exclusively.
When police were conducting interviews during the investigation, they discovered the members who shared their account information lived near the Schertz branch. The suspects either approached these members in person or on Snapchat, Wagner said. He noted the suspects often communicated among themselves via Snapchat because messages exchanged on the social media app are inaccessible a short time after they are received.
“The main players in this case would change their Snapchat handle and move around quite a bit, and that’s how they looked for other people that they could take advantage of,” Wagner said.
The Tri-County Fraud Task Force, Schertz Police Department and Guadalupe County Attorney’s Office said the following people were arrested for allegedly engaging in organized criminal activity: Donell Garfield Sauls, Angelina Alfaro, Jesse Rodriguez, Jabari Durham, Ryan D. Hull, Enrique Gomez, Kiana Casas, Jordan Spence, Pernell Riley, Kassandra Hall and Anthony McGruder.
When reached by CU Times, the $14.6 billion RBFCU in Live Oak declined to comment on this case.