Recently, several Bozeman-area banks fell victim to a national scam law enforcement is calling "Operation Homeless" where homeless individuals are persuaded to cash fake checks.
"They usually present this fraud as something like, you know, they can't cash their own paycheck for some reason and they try to give it some kind of plausible deniability for the individual that they're trying to convince to cash the check for them," says Bozeman Police Detective Jake Ahmann. "In exchange, that individual is going to be promised some smaller dollar amount of the figure."
Ahmann says Operation Homeless is a national fraudulent check-cashing scam involving a highly organized operation that persuades homeless individuals to cash fake checks.
Last year, around this time, MTN reported on a similar check fraud case.
In this most recent case that targeted several banks in the area including First Security Bank, law enforcement was able to warn neighboring towns before the fraud occurred elsewhere.