If you are going to go to all of this trouble; be sure you can spell FOOD!
An alert grocery store clerk noticed that "food" was spelled "foood" and alerted the police, bringing to an end a Coinstar crime.
http://www.courant.com/community/news/nb/hc-coinfraud1217.artdec17,0,5461556.story
Forgery, Larceny
Three Face Charges In Coin Cashing Scheme
By DON STACOM | The Hartford Courant
December 17, 2008
PLAINVILLE - Three men cashed in coin machine receipts totaling about $5,000 at supermarkets around the state over the past several months, but police said there was a problem they didn't deposit any coins.
Instead, the men printed counterfeit Coinstar receipts to collect hundreds of dollars at a time from stores in a half-dozen towns, according to police.
Coinstar maintains self-service sorting machines in stores. Customers pour in loose change and get receipts to turn in for cash.
Two of the suspects started the scheme by creating a fake company in New Britain to buy color inks and other materials to get around Coinstar's patented anti-counterfeiting system, police said. And they might still be doing it except for a spelling error that tipped off a clerk.
"They spelled 'food' with three o's 'foood,' " Plainville Lt. Brian Mullins said.
Detectives arrested Raymond LeClerc Jr. in October and Gilbert Ely earlier this month. Police say they expect the third suspect to turn himself in later this month. All three face forgery and larceny charges.
The scheme began in the summer, when Ely and the third man set up A & C Design in New Britain and used the company's name to order special inks and stencils that could reproduce Coinstar receipts, police said.
Ely and his partner printed phony receipts and exchanged them through cashiers at Stop & Shop, Big Y and Shaw's supermarkets, Mullins said. Stores in Manchester, East Hartford, Vernon, Ellington, Tolland and Berlin were victimized. The chains eventually alerted workers to the scheme, Plainville police Sgt. Dean Cyr said.
At some point, Ely and the other man recruited LeClerc to help, Mullins said. LeClerc tried to pass a receipt for $170.89 at Big Y in Plainville in mid-October, but a suspicious clerk recognized it as bogus and notified a police officer who was in the store handling an unrelated call, police said. LeClerc, 33, of Thomaston, was arrested in the parking lot.
Cyr used LeClerc's cellphone records and surveillance tapes from various supermarkets during his investigation, and arrested Ely, 41, of New Britain on Dec. 6. The third suspect, a 32-year-old New Britain man, is in South Carolina, but has agreed to surrender to police after investigators in other communities complete their warrants for him, Mullins said.
A representative for Coinstar, a Seattle-based company that makes its profit by keeping 9 percent of the loose change that customers deposit, did not return a phone call Tuesday.
An alert grocery store clerk noticed that "food" was spelled "foood" and alerted the police, bringing to an end a Coinstar crime.
http://www.courant.com/community/news/nb/hc-coinfraud1217.artdec17,0,5461556.story
Forgery, Larceny
Three Face Charges In Coin Cashing Scheme
By DON STACOM | The Hartford Courant
December 17, 2008
PLAINVILLE - Three men cashed in coin machine receipts totaling about $5,000 at supermarkets around the state over the past several months, but police said there was a problem they didn't deposit any coins.
Instead, the men printed counterfeit Coinstar receipts to collect hundreds of dollars at a time from stores in a half-dozen towns, according to police.
Coinstar maintains self-service sorting machines in stores. Customers pour in loose change and get receipts to turn in for cash.
Two of the suspects started the scheme by creating a fake company in New Britain to buy color inks and other materials to get around Coinstar's patented anti-counterfeiting system, police said. And they might still be doing it except for a spelling error that tipped off a clerk.
"They spelled 'food' with three o's 'foood,' " Plainville Lt. Brian Mullins said.
Detectives arrested Raymond LeClerc Jr. in October and Gilbert Ely earlier this month. Police say they expect the third suspect to turn himself in later this month. All three face forgery and larceny charges.
The scheme began in the summer, when Ely and the third man set up A & C Design in New Britain and used the company's name to order special inks and stencils that could reproduce Coinstar receipts, police said.
Ely and his partner printed phony receipts and exchanged them through cashiers at Stop & Shop, Big Y and Shaw's supermarkets, Mullins said. Stores in Manchester, East Hartford, Vernon, Ellington, Tolland and Berlin were victimized. The chains eventually alerted workers to the scheme, Plainville police Sgt. Dean Cyr said.
At some point, Ely and the other man recruited LeClerc to help, Mullins said. LeClerc tried to pass a receipt for $170.89 at Big Y in Plainville in mid-October, but a suspicious clerk recognized it as bogus and notified a police officer who was in the store handling an unrelated call, police said. LeClerc, 33, of Thomaston, was arrested in the parking lot.
Cyr used LeClerc's cellphone records and surveillance tapes from various supermarkets during his investigation, and arrested Ely, 41, of New Britain on Dec. 6. The third suspect, a 32-year-old New Britain man, is in South Carolina, but has agreed to surrender to police after investigators in other communities complete their warrants for him, Mullins said.
A representative for Coinstar, a Seattle-based company that makes its profit by keeping 9 percent of the loose change that customers deposit, did not return a phone call Tuesday.
Now that I think about it, I do remember one guy rolling his bag of coins into the store in a shopping cart. Was that you? 
