7 Arrested in Check Counterfeiting Ring

Seven people were arrested and 19 more were being sought Thursday as suspects in a sophisticated counterfeit check cashing ring that bilked Bank of America branches throughout Southern California.

Bank officials estimated their losses at $1.3 million.

In a court affidavit, Dena Choucair of the FBI said the bogus checks were printed on high-quality paper to emulate payroll checks. Checks of more than 50 companies were counterfeited and cashed over a year.

Choucair said about 120 runners were used to cash the checks at various branches.

The runners used their real driver’s licenses as identification. When cashing checks of non-customers, bank tellers usually run a check on the driver’s license to weed out false IDs.

To avoid early detection, the runners also cashed duplicates of the same check minutes apart at different Bank of America branches.

The suspects were identified as Jose Francisco Mijangos Bustillos, 23, and Martin Olmos, 32, both of Pasadena; Louis Sandoval Jr., 20, Omar Arriola, 38, and Luis Medardo Recinos, 31, all of Los Angeles; Christina Monica Salazar, 22, of Monrovia; and Felicia Adams, 25, of Las Vegas.