An Australian woman's scheme to deceive multiple banks using stolen identities came to an end as she received a prison sentence from the U.S. District Court in St. Louis. Gabrielle Borthwick, aged 23, was sentenced to 66 months in prison for attempting to deposit $2.7 million in fraudulent and stolen checks across various financial institutions.
Borthwick, who pleaded guilty in September to a dozen felonies, including six counts of financial institution fraud and six counts of aggravated identity theft, employed an array of deceptive tactics. She opened or tried to open accounts by passing counterfeit cashier's checks valued between $121,260 and $1.4 million, and used the names, birthdates, and Social Security numbers of several individuals alongside counterfeit driver's licenses. Assistant U.S. Attorney Justin Ladendorf laid bare the extent of her deception in a sentencing memo stating Borthwick's attempts to dissuade suspicions with claims of running a wedding planning business, and her efforts to conceal tattoos and distinguishing marks by wearing strategic clothing and bandages, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Missouri.
She managed to defraud banks out of $271,667 before the scheme was halted by bank officials who caught on to some of her attempts to open accounts and deposit the bogus checks. This included a stolen check worth $30,000, intercepted from the mail. U.S. District Judge Matthew T. Schelp ordered Borthwick to repay the stolen funds, recognizing the significant impact of her fraudulent activity, as mentioned by the U.S. Attorney's Office.
The case was the focus of an investigation conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations, various Missouri police departments, and the Edwardsville police department in Illinois.
