| Four Arrested, Others Sought After Homemade Checks Cashed |
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By LISA McNEECE Four men were arrested and others are being sought on forgery charges after a manhunt Monday afternoon. The incident started in Vardaman around 3 p.m. when a teller at BancorpSouth became suspicious of checks being cashed at the bank. Sheriff Billy Mac Gore said a group of almost 30 Hispanics had cashed checks at Ward's Short Stop and Mounce Supermarket before going to the bank. He said it is not unusual for migrant workers to line up to have employment checks cashed at local businesses. However the checks cashed Monday were apparently home-made. Gore said the teller noticed that the checks all had the same check number and were on Vardaman farmer Tim Jack Edmondson's account. She phoned Edmondson who said that check number was still in his checkbook. Gore said when she made the phone call, the man in the front of the line said something to the ones behind him, and they fled the bank in several different vehicles. Four men got into a red car with Florida plates and headed west on Highway 8 toward Calhoun City with Vardaman police in pursuit. Vardaman radioed Calhoun City who joined in the chase along with Calhoun deputies traveling to Funderburg bottom, south of Calhoun City where the men turned on CR 342. The men bailed out of the car and and hit the woods on foot, Gore said. Two were apprehended almost immediately, he said, and the other two were captured within two hours. Gore said one was found in a ditch filled with water and the other in a tree. He said all four had wads of money in their pockets and three or four identification cards each-- all with their photos, but different names on each. Gore said that $7,700 worth of checks was cashed at Mounce, $2,006 at Ward's and $16,420.92 at the bank, before the group left. Each check was around $400. Gore said they recovered $17,058 from the four men. Calhoun sheriff's department found out later last night that the group had done the same thing in Humphreys county Monday morning, where they got more than $46,000 from a bank in Belzoni. Gore said the checks there were written on a farmer's account, also. He said some of the men were from New York, Conneticut and Florida and apparently had been operating the scam in different places over the country. After questioning the four, Gore said the men were recruited for the job by two men they called "Bobo" and "Muriachi" who were with the group yesterday at the businesses, possibly driving a white Mitsubishi SUV. Gore said the men travelled along with the pair, posing as migrant workers, cashing the checks and giving half to "Bobo" and "Muriachi". They also believe that at least two vans–a gray or light green and a black with North Carolina plates-- were used by the group at Vardaman. The men arrested were Lauro Viveros, 24; Andrea Angelo, 24; Lender Cortez, 29; and Jesus Calle, 24. They were each charged with 19 counts of uttering forgery, felony fleeing, conspiracy to commit a crime and resisting arrest. They remain in the Calhoun County Jail. Gore said that every law enforcement agency in the county assisted in the chase, and Chickasaw county police brought their dogs to assist. |