By Burke Olsen
Orem Police officers are investigating what appears to be a sophisticated check-fraud scheme that has victimized at least one BYU student.
Police officers were in the process of serving a search warrant for drug charges in an Orem home on Jan. 31 when they found a stack of checks that did not appear to belong to the suspects.
A man and a woman were arrested and charged with drug offenses. It is uncertain whether they were involved with the fraud.
Officer Gary Giles of the Orem Police Department said he believes the checks may be stolen.
“We have recovered a lot of checks that appear to be stolen out of the mail at some point,” Giles said.
To find more information for the police investigation, Giles began to call people whose checks have been recovered.
Earlier this week he called the home of Lauren Parry, a BYU student from Boise whose Idaho address was listed on one of the checks. As of Tuesday night, Parry was unreachable for comment.
Though the checks were found in an Orem home, they belong to individuals who live all over the valley, Giles said.
“This is not targeted at BYU students. There were more checks from other cities than from Provo,” Giles said.
This type of crime is not unusual in Utah County.
“This is a real problem for us,” said Captain Keith Teuscher of the Provo Police Department.
“They”re just like traffic accidents. It is happening all the time,” he said.
The consequences of having a check or checkbook stolen can be devastating to an individual in the short term, but the long-term effects can be even worse.
“It ruins your credit history and can take years to clear up,” Teuscher said.
Checks are stolen in a number of ways.
It is common for checks to be taken from cars, backpacks and purses. Sometimes a new box of checks arrives after someone has moved and that is when someone will swipe them, Teuscher said.
Police are not sure how the recovered checks were being used.
Giles said there was some computer equipment in the home and he thought the suspects might be using it to modify and print new checks.
Orem Police have contacted the U.S. Postal Inspector and he is looking into making federal charges, Giles said.
No arrests have been made in connection with the fraud case. Orem police have not released the names of the man and woman who were arrested in connection with the search warrant.
It will take weeks for the U.S. Postal Inspector to contact all of the people whose checks were recovered.
People who have reason to believe their checks may have been stolen should contact their bank and the local police department, Giles said.
