Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

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Frank Abagnale has made a good life out of crime.

Twenty years ago, he spent hard time in French, Swiss, Swedish, and U.S. prisons after writing $2.5 million worth of fraudulent checks in 26 countries and every state.

But these days he's senior advisor to the FBI's Financial Crimes Unit, a faculty member of the American Bankers Association's Security School and one of the world's leading authorities on check fraud and secure documents.

And he's in town for a U.S. Bank seminar to tell business owners how to protect themselves from the fraud he knows so well.

Abagnale said that his new life started when the federal government made him an offer he couldn't refuse. It was in the mid-1970s and he was serving 12 years in federal prison for forgery.

"I'd been in for four years when the government made me a simple offer -- they said I could leave prison if I'd work for them for free," he said.

It was an offer he couldn't refuse, and he was taken to Houston, where he spent five years helping eliminate fraud within the federal government. Then he went to work for the FBI, investigating white-collar crime.

"But they didn't pay me. I worked nights at a grocery store stocking shelves to support myself," he said.

Over time, Abagnale redesigned U.S. postal money orders and went on to work as a consultant for large companies as a secure-document expert. Today he runs a successful business teaching others how to avoid fraud.

Education? A GED and some college courses he took in prison.

Last year, U.S. banks and large companies swallowed over $10 billion in losses from bad checks, and the problem just keeps on growing.

"More than $1.2 million of worthless checks enter the banking system every day. And it just keeps on getting worse," Abagnale said. "Technology breeds crime. It always has and always will. What I did is 200 times easier today. Check fraud is a big, big business in the U.S."

In the 1990s, personal computers, scanners and laser printers replaced the costly four-color printing press that was needed to duplicate checks 25 years ago.

"It took a lot of skill and patience then," he said. "But today, you can scan a check on a PC in 12 minutes. Checks are made so well today they clear the bank with no problem. And today, society is more concerned about drug dealers, murderers and rapists than check fraud.

"Criminals have found this is a very safe way to make money," he said, adding that Nevada is a great market for forgers to cash phoney travelers checks and personal checks as well as pass counterfeit money.

Because of a federal law that no longer makes banks necessarily liable for bad checks, businesses eat the losses.

"It's one thing for large companies that can afford to write it off. But it's more of a concern for small businesses -- a large bad check could bankrupt them," he said.

So, what's to be done?

For starters, a good defense at the front lines. Abagnale said it only takes about 15 minutes for money-handling employees to learn to spot bad checks.

For example, there's an easy way to find incorrect routing numbers on the bottom of the check, and a magnifying glass can detect printing errors the naked eye cannot.

While most all legitimate checks are perforated (except U.S. government checks), most bad checks are not.

And everyone simply needs to be more careful.

Abagnale said writing phone numbers and credit card numbers on checks for identification only gives dishonest people easy access to more information.

Bad guys can even get a name and address to use on a bad check by looking over the shoulder of an unwitting person writing a check in the grocery line.

And another tip: signatures of company officials in annual reports can be easily replicated.

"Don't become paranoid, but we as a society have to stop being so naive, and companies don't have to spend a lot of money on prevention, just use some common sense," Abagnale said.

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