Fraudulent Cashier’s Checks Duplicated by Bank’s Printer

Newport Beach-based Southern California Bank, which was bought last year by U.S. Bancorp, is warning financial institutions to be wary of bogus cashier’s checks that were fraudulently duplicated by a printing company used by the bank to print checks.

Thousands of bogus checks may have been reproduced without authorization, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said in an alert to banks. The bank has intercepted five of the checks that were deposited in Arizona. Regulators are warning banks to verify the validity of cashier’s checks drawn on Southern California Bank with serial numbers ranging from 170500 to 200000.

A bank spokeswoman declined to identify the printing company and said the matter was being handled by the bank’s security department. She did not know whether law enforcement agencies have been notified. The bank has issued stop-payment orders on the duplicated checks in circulation. Consumers will not suffer any losses from fraudulent checks, the spokeswoman said.