Countywide

A San Ysidro man was arrested Friday and charged with buying more than $300,000 worth of merchandise with fraudulent cashier’s checks during the last two weeks.

Tony Dominguez Acosta, believed to be about 20 years old, was arrested in his apartment on West San Ysidro Boulevard by San Diego County Sheriff’s Department detectives.

Acosta was booked into the downtown jail on an unspecified number of charges in connection with the purchases, which had been made since Dec. 23, Lt. Bob Trevino said.

Trevino said Acosta bought a Jet-Ski, jewelry, electronics and other merchandise. The bogus checks were passed at a Honda-Kawasaki dealer in Lemon Grove, a Radio Shack in Vista and unidentified merchants in Chula Vista, authorities said.

Chula Vista Police Sgt. Art Hauer said that his department has no idea how many of the fake checks may still be floating around. “The checks are ‘in the mail,’ so to speak, to be sent back to the victims,” he said. Authorities have three of them so far.

Merchants can lessen the chance of being victimized, Hauer said, if they ask for some sort of identification and call the issuing bank for verification.

“One victim was under the impression that a cashier’s check is as ‘good as gold,’ ” Hauer said. “That may have been true in the past. Now, there’s a lot of technology and duplicating equipment, and you can’t say that anymore. The fictitious (checks) look so authentic that the best thing to do is to verify them with the issuing bank.”

The issuing bank cited on the fraudulent checks was Mission Valley Bank of San Clemente.