- Key insight: Dechanta Benning established a shell company and used mobile deposit technology to cash stolen checks, a methodology becoming standard for fraudsters.
- Supporting data: The American Bankers Association reported that check fraud has increased over 385% nationwide since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- What’s at stake: Financial institutions are struggling to combat schemes where criminals use stolen checks to create fraudulent endorsements that take months to identify.
Overview bullets generated by AI with editorial review
Processing Content
A Georgia woman recently received a sentence of nearly six years in federal prison for orchestrating a bank fraud and identity theft scheme that deceived major financial institutions using intercepted mail and altered business checks.
Dechanta Benning, who was sentenced last week by U.S. District Judge J. Randal Hall, will serve 70 months in prison followed by five years of supervised release. The case involves a type of fraud that financial institutions are struggling to combat: mail theft-related check fraud.
By detailing Benning’s methods, court documents reveal how fraudsters are exploiting gaps in deposit verification and business account opening processes.
Prosecutors did not provide a total amount that Benning allegedly stole via fraudulent checks. Her sentencing guidelines suggest the amount is between $550,000 and $1.5 million. The indictment against her indicates she intercepted and negotiated checks in amounts between $5,000 and $20,000.
Prosecutors indicted Benning in January 2025. She pleaded guilty to bank fraud and aggravated identity theft in October 2025 and is scheduled to surrender to federal custody on May 11.
The anatomy of the scheme
Benning’s operation ran from January 2023 through July 2023. According to the indictment and plea agreement, the process started with stealing physical checks from mailboxes (prosecutors did not detail whether these were blue deposit boxes or private boxes) then altering them.
Investigators found that checks intended for or sent by local businesses had been intercepted. Benning and her associates targeted specific high-value checks, including those drawn on accounts at Enterprise Bank and Trust, Prosperity Bank and HAB Bank.
Once Benning obtained the checks, she and her accomplices altered the payee names to direct funds to accounts they controlled. In other instances, they used the information from the stolen checks to create counterfeit versions.
To facilitate the deposits, Benning established a shell entity. She opened a business checking account at JPMorganChase on May 4, 2023, under the name “Fresh Kix on Me, LLC,” using her own Georgia driver’s license and Social Security number.
Exploiting digital channels
Benning used mobile deposit technology to speed up the fraud. On May 18, 2023, she used mobile deposit to place a $9,800.70 check into her “Fresh Kix” account. The check was drawn on the account of Liquidmetal Coatings Enterprises, a Tennessee-based company, and had been altered to make Benning’s shell company the payee.
In a separate instance on May 31, 2023, Benning deposited a $17,889.26 check — also drawn from Liquidmetal Coatings — into a Wells Fargo account belonging to an associate. She negotiated the check, with the payee altered to “Superior Tax Agency, LLC,” at a Wells Fargo ATM.
Benning also pleaded guilty to aggravated identity theft for using the name and forged signature of “H.S.,” a comptroller for Liquidmetal Coatings, to validate the fraudulent checks.
A rising threat landscape
Benning’s sentencing comes as banks face a surge in mail theft-related check fraud.
The Financial Trend Analysis by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or Fincen, received 15,417 reports from banks related to mail theft-related check fraud associated with more than $688 million in transactions, including both actual and attempted transactions, according to a September 2024 report.
“Criminals most frequently alter and then negotiate stolen checks,” the agency report said. “Their second most frequent use of stolen checks was creating counterfeit checks — where a stolen check is used as a template to produce counterfeits.”
The American Bankers Association reported that check fraud has increased over 385% nationwide since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Even using the oldest, most transparent monetary instrument in America (a check), the criminals can leverage the two most difficult factors to defend against bank related frauds today, speed and anonymity,” the trade association said in a July 2025 letter to Congress.
The methodology seen in the Benning case — specifically the use of shell companies to legitimize deposits — is becoming standard practice for fraudsters.
“This trend does not require the criminal to alter or counterfeit the stolen check before depositing it,” according to a Federal Reserve report on stolen business identities. “Instead, it leads to a fraudulent endorsement that could take the issuer of the check months to identify — giving the criminal plenty of time to access the funds and disappear.”
To combat these schemes, tech vendors sell image forensic AI to banks, to help identify red flags of check fraud on deposited checks.
“While fraudsters have honed their craft creating counterfeits and altering and washing checks, there are still key indicators on a check that image forensic AI will flag, enabling banks to review the check before funds are released,” OrboGraph, a check processing technology company, noted in a recent blog post.