It was America’s Most Convenient Bank — for scammers.
A band of crafty fraudsters recruited more than 90 “mules” to open TD Bank accounts — filled with false deposits using rubber checks — and then quickly drove the hired hands to Atlantic City and Foxwoods, where they cashed out at the casinos, the Manhattan DA said yesterday.
The scheme had exploited a TD Bank funds-availability loophole for at least two years — netting the bandits nearly half a million dollars.
The mules? All each of them got was a couple hundred dollars, a treat at McDonald’s on the drive home — and felony grand-larceny and conspiracy raps.
“It’s a very organized, long-term scam,” DA Cyrus Vance Jr. said.
Three ringleaders — Joel Luciano, 30, José Cruz, 34 and Freddie Mercado, 25, all of The Bronx — ran the scheme for at least two years, officials said.


