SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — A Utah man has been charged with 46 counts of felony theft after allegedly creating multiple bank accounts and depositing and transferring nearly $4 million from fraudulent checks and wire transfers.
According to court documents, Jason Vaughn Harvey, 45, had been opening several bank accounts at multiple different institutions since January 2023. The accounts were used solely for what police call “fraudulent transactions.” Through their investigation, Taylorsville PD detectives said they learned several of these had been shut down due to fraudulent and suspicious activity.
Police say Harvey would deposit fraudulent checks and receive wire transfers after gaining a victims’ email and contacting their banks. Detectives allege Harvey deposited over a dozen checks totaling about $1,208,000 and completed 33 illegal wire transfers in the amount of about $2,789,452.
Once the money was in his account, police allege Harvey would then transfer the money into cryptocurrency where it is then wired to several other wallets.
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Harvey was reportedly approached by Taylorsville detectives in February 2024, who thought he may have been a victim of a scam.
Harvey allegedly told investigators he was warned by the different banks of the fraudulent nature of the transactions but he continued to do them because he believed ‘his girlfriend’ wouldn’t lie to him.
“[His] alleged girlfriend is in the military and the amount of money that was sent to him far exceeds that of someone in the military,” A Taylorsville PD officer wrote in his probable cause statement. “During the interview, I advised [Harvey] to stop all contact with his alleged girlfriend and advised him it was all fraud.”
According to court documents, even after speaking with Taylorsville detectives, Harvey continued to conduct the fraudulent transactions for several months. One transaction was reportedly completed an hour after speaking to police.
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Police allege Harvey’s name is the only one associated with the bank accounts and crypto account.
In addition to the felony theft charges, Harvey also faces a felony charge for a pattern of unlawful activity and 11 counts of felony possession of forgery writing. Court documents show he was ordered to be held on a $5,000 bail, pending several conditions and a pretrial hearing.
Charges are allegations only. All arrested persons are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
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