Six people are charged in a scheme that used checks stolen from the mail and fraudulent Minnesota companies to take more than $1.5 million from Twin Cities banks, according to a federal indictment. A grand jury returned the indictment on June 26. The lead defendant made his initial appearance in federal court on September 4.
Willie Roy Turner Jr., 29, of Chicago, Illinois, is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, one count of bank fraud, one count of aggravated identity theft and one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud. He appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Shannon G. Elkins.
Five others are charged alongside him. Billy Ray Cameron Jr., of Chicago, faces the same four counts. Marc Anderson, Devontay Colbert and Dontae Williams, all of Chicago, are each charged with one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, one count of bank fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft. Takiya Shemwell, of Chicago, is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud.
According to the indictment, from about November 2022 to about September 2024 the defendants conspired to defraud banks and credit unions in the Twin Cities by negotiating stolen checks. They opened, or attempted to open, fraudulent and unauthorized bank accounts in the names of business victims at Twin Cities financial institutions.
The court documents say the defendants registered the payee business victims as new Minnesota limited liability companies, then used those company documents to open the accounts. They presented fraudulent identification in the names of other people and falsely claimed to be authorized representatives of the businesses. After depositing the funds, they withdrew the money through cash withdrawals or cashier’s check purchases.
Shemwell was then an employee of the United States Postal Service in Chicago. According to the indictment she identified and stole business mail containing checks paid from or payable to the business victims, then sold those checks to Turner Jr. and Cameron Jr. in exchange for payments on a peer-to-peer money transfer application. The two men then shared the stolen checks with each other and with other co-conspirators.
In all, the conspirators deposited or attempted to deposit business victim checks worth more than $5.1 million at Twin Cities financial institutions and were successful in stealing more than $1.5 million.
The case was investigated under the Minnesota Financial Crimes Task Force by the United States Postal Inspection Service, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the Eagan Police Department, the Richfield Police Department and the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office, with assistance from the United States Marshals Service in Minnesota, Illinois and Arizona.
An indictment is merely an allegation, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
