09/11/2026

$5.1M in business checks stolen in Twin Cities fraud scheme, feds say

Fox 9 KMSP

What we know:

Willie Roy Turner Jr., 29, of Chicago, Illinois, is identified as the lead defendant in the case after making his first court appearance on Sept. 4, on charges that include conspiracy to commit bank fraud, bank fraud, aggravated identity theft and conspiracy to commit mail fraud.

Dig deeper:

According to the indictment, the scheme ran from at least November 2022 through at least September 2024.

Turner Jr. and four co-conspirators — Marc Anderson, Billy Ray Cameron Jr., Devontay Colbert and Dontae Williams — allegedly conspired to defraud banks and credit unions in the Twin Cities area by depositing stolen checks into fraudulent accounts.

Courts documents outline that the group allegedly opened, or attempted to open, unauthorized bank accounts in the names of business victims at Twin Cities financial institutions.

To do that, they registered the targeted businesses as new Minnesota Limited Liability Corporations (LLC) and used those documents to open the accounts. They then presented fraudulent identification, falsely claiming to be authorized representatives of those businesses.