Where did his money go?

NEW YORK (WABC) -- If they could take half a million dollars out of our account without catching it, what would happen to your account?

> A small business owner says his bank gave away hundreds of thousands of dollars from his account, never flagging fraudulent checks until it was too late.

If it happened to him, could it happen to you?

The alleged bank fraud apparently was unbelievably easy to carry out and now the FBI and other agencies are on the case.

Steve Elefetheriou is a hands-on construction company owner who keeps tight control of his business account at TD Bank in Edison, New Jersey, but he was powerless to prevent the bleeding of his finances.

He says a bank officer flagged him about suspicious transactions totaling just over $60,000. In fact, hundreds of thousands had already been withdrawn from his bank account.

"They gave me a printout and I was beside myself. It was roughly half a million dollars that had disappeared from my account," Elefetheriou said.

Records show TD bank had processed nearly 50 checks within a matter of days, all supposedly signed by Elefetheriou.

"My signature doesn't look anything like this," he explained. "They took a piece of paper from some printout and put our account number on it."

He notes the fraudulent checks are totally out of sequence from those in his account and there are lots of other blatant differences.

The name of his company is misspelled, the company logo is missing and the bank logo is missing on the bogus checks.

Elefetheriou: "How much do you really need? You want someone to write fraud on this?"
Sarah: "Someone should have flagged this."
Elefetheriou: "Oh, yeah. When you put money in a bank and they promise to protect it, and then when you go to see how much you have and they tell you, oops, it's gone, who would you blame?"

TD Bank said it can't comment specifically because of an "ongoing law enforcement investigation&." But maintains, "We have sophisticated fraud detection procedures in place that continuously monitor activity. As always, in cases where there is PROVEN fraudulent activity, customers are reimbursed."

"It's not like someone robbed the place. Someone went in there with obviously fraudulent documents. They have systems, mechanisms that are supposed to prevent that. They obviously failed," Elefetheriou said.

And who were all those checks written to? That's now the key part of the investigation. They're stamped with different locations in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and even Chicago, Illinois. A few are written to this name: Fatima Nazir, the majority to a Fairview Sound, Inc.

Elefetheriou says he does not know any of the names on the checks.

One of the checks has a stamp that says, Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. We found a Fairview Sound on 65th Street in Bensonhurst. The office is vacant.

We obtained a copy of Fairview Sound's lease agreement. The applicant was a Mohammad Shahbaz, who lists an address in an apartment building in Ditmas Park.

"He went back to Pakistan," a neighbor told us.

Neighbors told us several different stories about Shabhaz and when they last saw him.

"I saw him in the hall a few times," said one resident.

While he waits for the outcome of the investigation, Steve Eleftheriou worries that his business may go under.

"We have a lot of bills to pay, benefits we need to pay," he said. "If they could take a half million dollars out of our account without catching it, what would happen to your account?"

Eleftheriou has now been forced to hire an attorney to try to get his money replaced. Law enforcement agencies who are involved, including the FBI, said they cannot discuss their investigation. <!--NOTHING BELOW HERE-->

If you have a tip about this or any other issue you'd like investigated, please give our tipline a call at 877-TIP-NEWS. You may also e-mail us at the.investigators@abc.com.

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