Fake water services cheques in circulation
Belize Water Services’ logo and personnel signatures were plastered on fraudulent cheques that were cashed in different parts of the country. Whoever the con artist was did a pretty good job because the fake cheques looked uncannily genuine. So far eight of them have been retrieved, totaling over four thousand dollars and all made out to Kenneth Jones. The cheques were used between August twenty-first and thirty-first and have a legitimate Social Security number for Jones on the back. B.W.S. called a press conference this afternoon to advise merchants and businesses and the Public Relations Manager Haydon Brown, along with Norman Augustine, the Internal Audit Manager, told the media this is the first such incident at B.W.S.
Haydon Brown, Public Relations Manager, B.W.S.
“The legitimacy of it are two things; it’s the size, which is eight and a half by eleven and on the back of our cheques there is nothing, it’s clear while on these, the security feature of a US type cheque. The fraudulent one has that.”
Norman Augustine, Internal Audit Manager, B.W.S.
“Atlantic Bank called to inform us about these cheques yesterday morning and in fact, it was brought to their attention because a number of the cheques had the same number, which is 7913. Thereafter, we looked at the matter; we went to the bank to actually view the copy of these cheques to see if they are genuine. We brought it to our C.F.O.’s attention as well as the C.E.O. and upon further investigation we recognized that one, it did not fall within the sequence that we are currently using and for the month in question and two, if you look closely at these cheques, the signatures they are identical. There is no difference whatsoever so it’s like duplicate copies that have been made.”
Haydon Brown
“Businesses, before accepting or cashing any “B.W.S. cheques”, ensure that IDs and things like that are checked out so they are cautioned to ensure that they check on anything—if somebody presents an ID, these things are cross referenced properly and if any doubt still lingers, they can get in touch with us at B.W.S. headquarters right here.”
B.W.S. is working with the police to ascertain if it was in fact Kenneth Jones who was cashing the cheques or someone using his ID. According to Augustine, a check of their accounts shows that no cheque was ever issued from BWS to Jones.
