Homeless "Check Runners" Arrested

by Josie Raymond · 2010-01-08 14:59:00 UTC
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Two men were arrested outside Savannah, Georgia on New Year's Eve for attempting to commit check fraud. What's interesting for us is that two accomplices who have not been punished committed a worse crime -- exploiting the homeless.

The arrested men, Rodmon Taylor, 44, and James Bass, 28, are both homeless. They said that strangers approached them outside an Atlanta shelter and offered them $500 to cash two checks totaling $15,000. When they agreed, they say a man and a woman in a GMC Envoy SUV drove them to a bank in an area they weren't familiar with and waited in the parking lot.

The day before, three different men had cashed three fake checks bearing the name of the same company, so a suspicious bank teller called the sheriff. When authorities arrived, the people waiting in the car drove off.

Taylor and Bass are being held in jail on charges of forgery and fraud. Officials say there appears to be an organized crime ring in Atlanta recruiting homeless people outside shelters to be "check runners." The runners carry all the risk for a small portion of the ill-gotten reward.

Photo credit: CarbonNYC

Josie Raymond is a Change.org editor who has reported from the streets of the South Bronx, written for several magazines that folded (not her fault) and fixed thousands of typos.
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