
WASHINGTON - A California woman pleaded guilty Thursday to helping processor more than $1.6 million in counterfeit Treasury Department Series I savings bonds through financial institutions across the United States.
Summer Marie Creech, 45, forged counterfeit I bonds using genuine bond numbers and sent them to co-conspirators who used stolen identification to redeem the forgeries at financial institutions in south Texas and elsewhere, the DOJ said.
The scam involved Creech, who split the profits with her conspirators for three years.
I bonds are fixed rate and inflation-adjusted variable rate returns. The financial instruments became more popular as the U.S. inflation rate grew, resulting in the Covid pandemic.
Creech, who lives in Fontana, Texas, pleaded Wednesday in federal court in Brownsville, Texas, to conspiracy to make, pass and transfer counterfeit U.S. securities and pass counterfeit U.S. securities.
She faces a maximum possible sentence of 20 years in prison, but is likely to receive less than that given federal sentencing guidelines.
Creech will be sentenced Dec. 20.
Daniel Alan Lewis, her co-conspirator, pleaded guilty on May 1 to passing counterfeit bonds through banks in the Houston and Brownsville areas of Texas, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.