The man identified as the mastermind behind an audacious and wide-ranging but low-tech bank fraud scheme perpetrated in communities throughout Southern Illinois and other states has been sentenced to nearly six years in prison.
Prosecutors say that from March through May 2023. Traveon Reese, 31, of Atlanta, Georgia, and numerous co-conspirators stole business checks from the mail, copied the account information and printed fraudulent checks using the forged signatures of the local business owners.
Reese and others then recruited people, often from local homeless shelters or bus terminals, to cash the fraudulent checks on their behalf. The fraud scheme targeted a bank in Collinsville, as well as more than a dozen other locations…