For nearly a week late last month, several local banks were targeted in an alleged check forgery scam.

Eight people, including three men from Georgia, have been arrested in connection with the operation, which police say involved people going to banks and attempting to cash checks that had been forged. Most of the arrests occurred Sept. 28-29 and police have charged multiple suspects with second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument, a Class D felony.

“We’ve had eight cases in Bowling Green and five from Franklin,” said Officer Barry Pruitt, spokesman for the Bowling Green Police Department.

Pruitt said the amount of the forged checks that suspects allegedly attempted to cash at banks totaled nearly $43,000. Evidence police collected also indicated that, rather than someone forging a signature on a personal check, payroll checks from actual businesses, including the city of Franklin, were being fraudulently created and presented to banks as legitimate.

“When these guys were apprehended, we got a vehicle that had computers, printers and a large amount of check stock,” Pruitt said.

The extent of this particular case is unique among local forgery investigations, but the crime itself is one that law enforcement says can happen anywhere and has done so with increasing frequency.

“These groups tend to move from one area to the next,” said Paul Johnson, special agent in charge at the U.S. Secret Service’s Louisville office. “These groups involved in counterfeit check passing have been around a long time, using false IDs and local folks with genuine IDs to cash checks through genuine businesses and bank accounts.”

City police reports indicate that three forged checks totaling $7,614 were cashed Sept. 24 at a Bowling Green bank, but many local banks were alerted to the investigations and sought verification on subsequent checks suspected of being forgeries.

Johnson said banks stand to lose a great deal of money by allowing forged checks to be processed.

“Once the word got out that these guys were dumping counterfeit checks, (banks) were on the lookout,” Johnson said.

Account holders who suspect fraudulent activity on their accounts generally have 30 days from their most recent account statement to inform the bank about multiple problem transactions from the same person, according to the federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, though up to a year of time is allowed for account holders to notify a bank of a single problem transaction on a statement.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. insurance does not cover losses a bank incurs through fraud or theft, so banks focus on staying aware of potential forgeries.

“There is a lot of mutual cooperation and communication between banks, businesses and local law enforcement,” Johnson said. “There are a lot of losers in this deal if these (checks) go through … counterfeit check passing is a problem countrywide, and we take a very aggressive stance here and spend a lot of time educating public and private sector businesses in what to watch out for and be aware of and in implementing good security policies and procedures.”

The vigilance is necessary, Pruitt said, because the crime itself is becoming easier to commit.

“It’s becoming more frequent to see this type of crime because forging checks has gotten easier as technology has advanced,” Pruitt said. “We could go to any of the office supply stores and purchase everything we needed to commit this crime.”