A member of a South Los Angeles-based Crips street gang is heading to federal prison for masterminding a $2.8 million bank fraud scheme involving stolen mail and social media recruitment.
The scheme relied on intercepting checks from the mail, altering or counterfeiting them, and using flashy Instagram posts of cash stacks to lure bank account holders into granting access, says the U.S. Department of Justice.
Chase Matthew Griffin, 26, also known as Trey, pleaded guilty in March to conspiracy to commit bank fraud and must pay $307,386 in restitution.
Griffin and accomplices deposited large fraudulent checks into recruited accounts and quickly withdrew funds via ATMs, Zelle, Cash App and other methods before detection.
One case involved $84,490 in checks stolen from a North Hollywood business postal box in Tarzana, altered and deposited into unrelated accounts.
Investigators from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and Upland Police Department traced the activity to Griffin, who has been in custody since September 2025.
The U.S. District Judge Josephine L. Staton handed Griffin a nine-year sentence on Thursday in the Central District of California.
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