The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agency was created in 2001 to protect the United States’ transportation systems and ensure the freedom of movement for people and commerce. How hard could that be? On March 15, 2024, a TSA agent in the Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport TSA agent halted a man who was allegedly trying to use a Mississippi driver’s license to get through security. That man fled the scene which is a good indicator that someone’s done something wrong. A sheriff’s deputy eventually spotted the suspect, since identified as Demarte D. Winters, in the airport’s car rental lobby with a backpack under his leg.
When asked about the ID, Winters said he gave it to someone else who had left the airport. He then provided another fake name and denied the backpack was his. One lie leads to another. Winters was taken to an airport substation for further questioning, during which he contradicted his original story, where he seemingly found the license used at the TSA checkpoint in his pocket. Detectives traced the fake driver’s license number to a real license holder in Mississippi, who hadn’t realized her license number had been stolen.
And that backpack that allegedly wasn’t Winters? One hundred and fifty-five checks with different people’s names on them. Worth a combined amount of $243,167.40. An investigation found thirty-eight of those checks had been stolen from U.S. Postal Service mailboxes and used for fraudulent transactions. Of those, 13 checks were used to take $91,760.55 from a victim’s account. Among Winters’ victims were several people over the age of sixty-five, whose checks, which they had placed in their mailboxes, were in the backpack.
Shout out to the TSA guy for doing his job.
Today’s Fraud of The Day is based on article “Mississippi man facing 24 felony charges in Wisconsin after deputies find 100+ stolen checks at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport” published by We Are Greenbay on May 1, 2024.
Following an investigation by Wisconsin authorities, a 25-year-old Mississippi man has been charged with 24 felony crimes in connection to a fraud conspiracy. According to the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office, 25-year-old Demarte D. Winters allegedly used stolen identification and forged documents and dealt stolen property.
Per a criminal complaint filed on Friday by the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office, the operation began to unravel on Friday, March 15, when a Milwaukee County Sheriff’s deputy assigned to Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport was sent to deal with Winters, who was attempting to pass through a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoint with a fake Mississippi driver’s license.
