'Miss Personality' wanted for 'check-kiting' crime

HOUSTON – In our latest Crime Crackdown, we want to tell you about one crime with many layers and many victims. Investigators say it's an elaborate scheme that ends with thieves stealing people's money and their identities.

"She didn't appear to be nervous at all," said Sgt. L. Peterson, with the Harris County Sheriff's Office Financial Crimes Division.

Her flashy disguise may be clever, but investigators are not amused.

"She seems to be very excited and happy to be going into the bank and passing stolen checks," Peterson said.

Investigators nicknamed her "Miss Personality." Surveillance cameras at a local bank allegedly caught her using someone else's identity to deposit a stolen check for $880 into that victim's bank account so she could withdraw some of that money to put into another bank.

"She'll go to the next bank and the next branch and try to do as many as she can," Peterson said.

It's what investigators call "check kiting." More often it's a lot more sophisticated and tends to involve a lot more money. In this case, it would have been nearly $3,000 had the bank failed to catch it.

Police believe there may be more suspects and more victims.

"It could be up to 10 victims because when they got the victim's checkbook, they just wrote a bunch of checks," said Peterson.

If you know who "Miss Personality" is, call the Harris County Sheriff's Office Financial Crimes Division at 713-967-5773.


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