Tigard bank scam suspects surrender to police

Police say two men conned local businesses into giving up money meant for night deposit box

The Portland Tribune, Sep 4, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (1 Reader comment)

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Tigard police discovered the arrests when California law enforcement officials sent a message about the case to Corvallis police, said Jim Wolf, Tigard Police Department spokesman. The message was forwarded to Tigard, which jumped on the case and obtained evidence photos and mug shots from Alameda County law enforcement.

Detectives said victims of the scam identified photos of the suspects.

Wolf said the issue has been turned over to the Washington County district attorney’s office, and his department expects a grand jury indictment “soon.”

The odd case began Aug. 15 when two businesspeople reported that fake security guards outside the Wells Fargo Bank, 9200 Washington Square Road, took their deposits.

Police said the two white men used very good disguises to con victims into handing over their bank deposits by presenting themselves as security guards, saying the night deposit box outside the bank is broken. The scam artists were wearing blue uniforms, with identification cards, some type of security badges and guns. They were standing in front of the night depository box attached to the bank Friday evening.

The men advised both victims that the night depository was out of service and they would collect any deposits and provide them to the bank the following morning. The two suspects had a black box, which they used to collect and store the deposits.

Both victims noticed a blue engraved sign positioned over the night depository door saying “Out of Service,” and both said the entire operation and appearance of the men looked “official.” In both cases, the victims gave their bank deposits to the men.

The bank has no knowledge of the two suspects and never authorized anyone to collect deposits from customers. Bank officials advised that they had no problems with the night depository that evening or ever.

The same scam was aired by the BBC program “The Real Hustle”, a television show that uses actors to scam people in everyday situations: http://nerdnirvana.org/2008/01/16/the-real-hustle-the-drop-box/ .

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