Four charged with financial identity theft over Busey accounts
URBANA — It's just about a bank customer's worst nightmare: a teller using personal information about a client to steal from the customer's account.
Urbana police say that's what happened to at least six customers of Busey Bank, who were apparently victimized to the tune of thousands of dollars in a scam that began late last spring and culminated Wednesday in the arrests of four college students.
Urbana police Sgt. Dan Morgan said Busey tellers Jalena Arnold, 19, of the 1700 block of North Lincoln Avenue, Urbana, and Heather Alexander, 20, of the 900 block of South First Street, Champaign, were allegedly feeding customer identifying information like Social Security numbers to Troy Perry, 21, and his roommate Deangelo Ashford, 20, who live in an apartment in the 1800 block of South Cottage Grove Avenue in Urbana.
The men were then using that information to siphon money out of the customer accounts.
The four were charged Thursday with three counts each of financial identity theft for allegedly stealing from three different Busey customers during June, August and September. If convicted of the more serious charges, they face penalties ranging from probation to three to seven years in prison.
Assistant State's Attorney Duke Harris told Judge Richard Klaus none of the four had prior convictions or pending cases.
Morgan said police were called in July when an Urbana man found $8,000 missing from his account. The investigation involved tracking a complicated electronic and paper trail to get to the suspects.
"One of the reasons it took so long is that we had to get a series of subpoenas. There were electronic transfers made from several victims' accounts to a bank in Omaha, then to PayPal, then to real accounts in the actual suspects' names," Morgan said.
He credited Investigator Duane Maxey for doing a "fabulous job of keeping track of a large amount of paperwork, multiple subpoenas, and correlating names and addresses." He also praised Busey Bank for working closely with police.
"Busey was instrumental in helping us gather information. The girls both commented that after this started, it got harder for them to get information because of changes Busey implemented in the midst of this thing," Morgan said.
Morgan said police believe that the four limited their activity to six victims and stole in the neighborhood of $30,000.
"It appears they used the same criteria, kind of a profile to the accounts: They had a lot of money in them and they did not have online access, which meant they weren't checking their accounts very often," Morgan said.
Amy Randolph, a senior vice-president at Busey, said the bank is "very comfortable with the internal monitoring systems we have to detect identity theft or any other type of suspicious activity."
"Our internal monitoring tools allow us to detect the issues. Our procedures worked in this instance. That's what led to this and led to the arrest of the individuals involved," said Randolph.
Morgan said Arnold was arrested at the branch bank at 2710 S. Philo Road, U, while Alexander was arrested at the branch at 2011 W. Springfield Ave., C. Both women are Parkland College students, he said. Randolph said neither is still working for Busey.
Perry, a Parkland student, was arrested Wednesday away from his apartment while Ashford, a University of Illinois student, was arrested Wednesday afternoon when he came in the police station to inquire about items that police had seized earlier in the day during a court-ordered search of their apartment.
Morgan said those items included a computer, financial documents like receipts for wire transfers, blanks for making false identification cards and a printer that could print such cards.
Harris said the women were friends of Ashford, who introduced them to Perry. Perry allegedly paid the women and Ashford for supplying him the customer information that enabled him to steal money from their accounts.
Judge Klaus set bond for each of the women at $2,500, for Ashford at $5,000, and for Perry at $10,000. Klaus appointed the public defender for Arnold and Alexander and told them to be back in court Dec. 20. Ashford and Perry asked for time to hire their own attorneys. They are due back in court Nov. 10.
Randolph said the bank has tools in place to monitor suspicious activity but urges customers to be vigilant about protecting their own identity and keeping tabs on their own accounts and credit reports. And for those who are averse to using computers to do that, she said the bank can answer questions for people who call 217-365-4500 or come in.
burn these punks. people work hard for their money and thes students think they are smart because they go to college. get them all and give them time. if the prosecutor don't, they're wimps and next election, don't vote for them. the bond was too small and they give people who do less 10,000 dollars bond? what's wrong with this picture? their parents' are white and mucky mucks?
Several years ago I was buying groceries at Meijers and paid with my debit card. When the cashier gave me my receipt I noted she put a 50 dollar 'cash back' charge. I pointed it out to her and she denied making the charge, and the person bagging the groceries confronted her for being dishonest. Needless to say she had to give me the 50 dollars she tried to steal from me. I later talked to a supervisor at the store who told me that they were making changes to the system to prevent further theft. Anyone who is hired to have access to money, financial, and personal information can potentially abuse that position. In this case it happened to be two bank tellers.
What I would find troubling is that Busey did not follow up on what appeared to have been withdrawals that were unusual for the accounts. According to this article a customer had to call and complain about eight thousand dollars that turned up missing. The place where I bank at has been known to call me over piddly ten dollar withdrawals for verification purposes. I would think that a large amount of money taken out electronically would send up a red flag in the system. I also try to keep track of my stuff online, but am aware that there may be some things I won't really be able to prevent.
.
Just to play Devil's Advocate, the article doesn't say "$8,000 all at once". Perhaps it was a few hundred here, a few hundred there, all which looked like similar withdrawals/payments the individual had set up. I'm not saying it is right that the bank let these slide, but the article makes it clear that the bank has been keeping tabs on the actions of these people... now that the perpetrators have been caught, people can be punished, and customers reimbursed.
Comments
News-Gazette.com embraces discussion of both community and world issues. We welcome you to contribute your ideas, opinions and comments, but we ask that you avoid personal attacks, vulgarity and hate speech. We reserve the right to remove any comment at our discretion, and we will block repeat offenders' accounts. To post comments, you must first be a registered user, and your username will appear with any comment you post. Happy posting.