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Watching Your Wallet: Ex-con shares secrets of economic crime

Benito Castro has a long rap sheet for identity theft and check fraud. Through it all, he convinced himself he wasn't really hurting anyone.

NEW ORLEANS - Benito Castro thought he’d found a Hollywood lifestyle in New Orleans. In the 1990s, he claimed to be close with celebrities and touted their projects at Planet Hollywood.

But like a movie’s troubled antihero, Castro harbored a secret. He was an ex-con who had served time for check-kiting, fraud and identity theft. When he got out of prison the first time, in 1996, he tricked the people closest to him -- his ex-wife and a new fiancée -- into believing he was reformed.

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He claimed he had a movie in production that year, directed by John Waters and starring Judd Nelson. It turned out to be a lie, just another con.

By 1999, Castro was at it again and was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison for stealing the identity of a Metairie dentist and charging thousands of dollars to credit cards he opened in the dentist's name.

When he got out of prison for the identity theft, Louisiana’s film tax credit program had turned New Orleans into Hollywood South and Castro wanted in. In 2010, he was back hobnobbing with movie stars as the host of a radio show focused on the city’s movie industry explosion. He said a gambling addiction drove him back to economic crime.

“My family, my friends, everyone saw me at this level. I couldn't let them see me down here,” Castro said. “So, I had to keep the money rolling in, and that's when I started writing fraudulent checks.”

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He said he went on an 18-month binge writing bogus checks at pawn shops and antique stores across the eastern U.S., collecting cash or valuables in exchange and using the money to supply his gambling addiction.

'What a snake! Catch him, Lord, catch him!'

Like a movie, it took a swashbuckling vigilante victim to finally catch him.

Castro used checks he stole from a business in New Orleans to buy four classic guitars from Bill Covington’s music store in Chipley, Fla. And that was Castro’s undoing. Covington said his local sheriff’s office didn’t have the resources to track down Castro, so he turned to the Internet instead.

“It was a $2,150 check for equipment that was worth about $3,000. Isn't that something?” Covington said in a selfie video he posted on YouTube shortly after Castro skipped town with the guitars. “What a snake! Catch him, Lord, catch him!”

Covington also made a Facebook page dedicated to Castro's crimes, inviting other victims to tell their stories. Soon, he heard from Castro's victims in other parts of Florida, Virginia, Illinois and elsewhere.

“I would send him texts like, 'Hey, Benito, the Hound of Heaven's chasing you, man," Covington said.

Castro said Covington’s internet videos and hounding texts made him so paranoid, he fled to Mexico. When he came back, border agents saw he was wanted in several states. He was arrested and convicted of stealing more than $10,000 from victims in three states, but acknowledges he swindled others too.

He went to prison for more than four years. He's now served at least 18 years in prison since 1992.

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This time will be different

After getting out this summer, Castro said it would be different this time. He said he isn’t keeping anything from his fiancée, a woman he’s been with since his first incarceration and stayed with him throughout the last one. Less than a month after his release from Hunt Correctional Center, he went back to celebrate his graduation from Ashland University. He is continuing to work with the Louisiana Department of Corrections on prisoner re-entry programs and counseling.

And he immediately wanted to share the details of his con game with WWL-TV, in hopes it will help individuals and businesses protect themselves.

He said the first thing to know is that con-men operate with a high level of confidence. They know police are focused on violent crime and severely shorthanded when it comes to economic crime.

“In the eyes of law enforcement, isn't it more important -- and I think everyone would be in agreement -- to stop the potential killer on the street than the potential guy who's gonna write a bad check?” Castro said.

And official crime data back that up.

The New Orleans Police Department has one detective dedicated to economic crimes like forgery, embezzlement and fraud, one supervisor and one reserve officer assigned to investigating economic crime for the District Attorney. Detectives in NOPD’s eight police districts also pursue larger cases exceeding $30,000, but they often rely on the Economic Crime Unit’s lone investigator for help.

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The NOPD averages about 1,500 investigations every year, detailed probes that NOPD Criminal Investigations Commander Doug Eckert calls “really involved.”

“That one detective that we do have, certainly he’s got to prioritize what cases he looks at,” Eckert said. “It almost sounds like it’s his face in a fire hose. It’s difficult. But he does it.”

NOPD received 10,256 calls for service for alleged economic crimes between Jan. 1, 2014, and Oct. 1, 2018. Officers filed reports or took necessary action on 7,546 of those calls. But only 537 of them led to an arrest, a clearance rate of a little more than 5 percent.

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NOPD total calls/arrests made by year since 2014

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New Orleans Economic Crime

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Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro said he receives hundreds of additional cases for crimes like forgery, check fraud and embezzlement that come directly to his office and never get reported to police. The DA’s office will investigate on its own, but still relies on limited NOPD resources to build its case for prosecution.

"The police department -- and I understand that the manpower shortage that they experience – certainly in many cases (is) not in a position to conduct the investigations that are needed, in order to give us all the evidence that we would like to have in order to go forward with a prosecution,” Cannizzaro said.

The Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office has a more robust economic crime unit, with seven detectives, two sergeants, a lieutenant and a commander. But JPSO said it could not provide the kind of detailed economic crime data that NOPD publishes for the public online, and the Jefferson police agency refused to give specific numbers for how many economic crime cases it receives and how many result in arrest.

Instead, JPSO Economic Crimes Commander Stanley Brown provided a range: 1,200 to 2,400 economic crime investigations a year. Brown acknowledged his unit is still stretched thin.

“With the seven, we’re struggling to keep up,” Brown said. “There’s no way one person could handle that.”

Brown said his office handles a lot of counterfeit credit card and fake check cases. Cons very similar to the ones Castro once ran.

How the cons worked

Castro has a long rap sheet dating back to the late 1970s. It started with theft and burglary, then expanded to check fraud and identity theft.

He started writing checks from his own accounts that he’d closed. Then he began stealing other people’s checks to draw on their open accounts.

He said he would sneak into office buildings after hours and steal real checkbooks from a company's accounting department. He would wear a suit and walk into a big office building at the end of the regular business day, as the real employees were filing out. The crew wouldn’t know he was an interloper, he said.

Then he said he became even bolder. He had a guy in Las Vegas printing bogus checks for him.

After he got out of prison the first time, he went to Iowa to work at a radio station and was charged with defrauding the station out of $20,000 in commissions.

He skipped town, came back to Louisiana, and in 1999, he lucked into finding a wallet Dr. Charles Glueck had mistakenly left in a restaurant bathroom. He used Glueck's Social Security number, which then appeared on state driver's licenses, to open several credit card accounts in Glueck's name and charge thousands of dollars.

Glueck said he couldn't get JPSO or New Orleans police to investigate. He turned to the State Police, which took the case and nailed Castro. Glueck said it took a year to fix his credit and recommended that people sign up for notifications from a credit reporting agency so they will know any time a new credit card is opened in their name.

Castro wrote Glueck a letter from jail apologizing. Glueck said he isn't surprised Castro turned to another con after he completed his sentence.

Through it all, Castro said he convinced himself he wasn’t really hurting anyone.

“In my mind, these people would just contact the bank, say, 'Oh, I got a bad check,' and the bank would reimburse them,” Castro said. “That was the lie I was telling myself.”

But Castro also knew there was a lot of truth to that. Many victims of economic crimes never call police. If a bank or credit card company reimburses them, they often just let it go.

Brown, the JPSO commander, said that’s true.

“Most banks will require them to file a police report. Some banks will actually contact us themselves. So, we work closely with the banks in the area,” Brown said. “Some of the larger banks nationwide aren’t as cooperative with law enforcement and they tend not to report issues to us.”

How to avoid being a victim

Castro offered some advice to help retailers avoid being victimized. Mostly, it’s about being more vigilant, whether a patron is paying by check or credit card. Look at the signatures and demand identification, he said.

“Don't put all your faith in the check verification service because the people who bounce checks for a living know how the system works,” he said.

At least make sure the person signing a check actually owns the check, he said.

“You'd rather see someone sign it and see their ID. No one asks for an ID anymore,” Castro said.

Credit card chip technology has helped reduce the use of counterfeit magnetic strip cards. But until all cards and card readers use the chips, he thinks additional regulations could help.

“You can't go buy a badge or a blue light to go on your car” to make it look like a police car, he said. “Well, (it should be the) same thing with magnetic strip cards. Have some sort of registration or something you have to go through to get these magnetic strip cards.”

And, most importantly, he said victims of economic crime need to start taking it as seriously as Covington did.

“If you've been a victim, contact the DA,” he said. “I mean, the people who were responsible for my incarceration, they dogged the DA's department.”

Covington hopes, like a Hollywood movie, Castro is truly reformed this time and finds redemption. But Glueck and others who had run-ins with Castro will never believe he's left the con-game behind.

“Morals are a good thing and honesty is a good thing, and I actually think he might actually be heading down that road now,” Covington said.

“I hope to make restitution to him, little by little,” said Castro, who called Covington after Hurricane Michael ripped through his home in Chipley. “There's a lot of restitution I have to make.”

WWL-TV reporter David Hammer can be reached at dhammer@wwltv.com. Follow him on Twitter @davidhammerWWL

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