OTTAWA COUNTY, Mich. — Ottawa County deputies are looking into a potential homeless labor scam.
In this scam, criminals target homeless individuals by luring them with work and then coercing them to cash a fake check.
Two men out of Grand Rapids may have fallen victim to the scam.
A Michigan woman, who wanted to remain anonymous, reached out to 13 ON YOUR SIDE to make the community aware of what happened to her son.
She says he was homeless and staying at Mel Trotter Ministries, a shelter in downtown Grand Rapids, where he was approached by two men back in September.
"These guys said, 'Does anyone want to work?' and he said, 'yeah!' and he took off with them."
They did some construction work in Cadillac and afterwards, the two men offered her son $900 out of a $6000 check once he cashed it at a bank.
The two men said they couldn't cash it themselves because they didn't have their ID.
"They had pretty much threatened if he didn't do this something would happen either to myself or him or any family members," said the mother.
After doing what he was told, her son was arrested in Leelanau County and charged with Uttering and Publishing which is a 14-year felony.
She says he did not know the check was fake.
In a separate case Wednesday, Nov. 2, in Georgetown Township, Alex Castillo, 29, of Grand Rapids was charged with the same crime.
Deputies say Castillo went to two banks trying to cash a suspicious $3,500 check.
Capt. Jacob Sparks with the Ottawa County Sheriff's Office said they're looking into whether criminals targeted Castillo in what is known as a 'Homeless Labor Scam.'
Court records shows Castillo was residing at Mel Trotter Ministries in Grand Rapids, however there's no current evidence he was approached by anyone while there.
"These people will sometimes target people down on their luck or destitute and use them to cash these checks for them," said Sparks. 'Somebody who's in charge of the operation or a ring leader will enlist other people to do the cash checking for them so if someone gets caught, it's the person trying to pass the bad check and not the person actually stealing them."
Deputies say this could be part of a larger criminal operation involving theft of checks from business mailboxes. They've had over a dozen incidents going back several months.
Thieves either cash or deposit the checks or wash them which is changing the payee info or the amount the check was written for.
"There's probably multiple groups of people doing this because we get reports of other county agencies dealing with this as well."
The mission sent us a statement saying:
"In light of recent media reports, we have advised our guests of situations in which people experiencing homeless are being targeted with fake check scams. We are saddened to hear of these instances which to the best of our knowledge have occurred outside of our building and out of our control. We encourage individuals to be vigilant and hope law enforcement is able to identify the perpetrators."
This mother has a warning for all.
"They don't care about these homeless people," the mother said. "They're using these homeless people because they think they're desperate and want to make a quick buck. Don't fall for that and ruin your life over something like this."
The woman's son is awaiting trial in Leelanau County and is fighting the charge.
Ottawa County deputies are still early in their investigation in their case to determine how big the U.S. mail and check fraud group is and if Castillo is tied to it in any way.
►Make it easy to keep up to date with more stories like this. Download the 13 ON YOUR SIDE app now.
Have a news tip? Email news@13onyourside.com, visit our Facebook page or Twitter. Subscribe to our YouTube channel.