PARAGOULD, Ark. — A man involved in a multi-county check fraud scheme was sentenced after his arrest at a Paragould bank earlier this year, court documents show.
Hugo Ayrot-Quintero, 30, pleaded guilty on Oct. 2 to charges of second-degree forgery and engaging in a continuing gang, organization, or criminal enterprise. As part of his plea agreement, Ayrot-Quintero received a four-year suspended imposition of sentence and was ordered to serve 183 days in jail. A separate charge of theft of property was dropped.
Ayrot-Quintero was one of three men arrested on March 25 in connection to the large-scale forgery operation. Paragould police responded to a forgery in progress at a local bank and found José Terán Moncayo, 29, attempting to cash a fraudulent check inside the bank, with Ayrot-Quintero and Wilber Montriel-Añez, 33, waiting outside in a vehicle. A search of the suspects’ vehicle uncovered two bank money sleeves holding more than $4,000 in cash each, multiple bank receipts, damaged checks, debit cards, and lists of bank addresses, transaction dates, and totals for recent activity in Arkansas and a neighboring state.
Detective Johnathan Porter said in an affidavit that subsequent investigations revealed the seized cash came from two forged checks cashed earlier the same day in Jonesboro. A member of the bank’s fraud department informed authorities that the same type of fraudulent checks had been cashed repeatedly at multiple bank branches in central Arkansas over the past few months.
All three men were formally charged the day after their arrest, with probable cause rulings issued by Greene County District Court Judge Curtis Hitt. The court set bond for Moncayo, Montriel-Añez, and Ayrot-Quintero at $250,000 each. Jail records indicate all three are being held at the Greene County Detention Center with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) holds in place.
The investigation into the full extent of the forgery scheme across the region remains ongoing.