2 Investigators

CHICAGO (CBS) ― Chicago area businesses have lost $25 million to what investigators call "bust out schemes."

At a time when most of us have trouble getting credit, these scammers borrow small fortunes so they can purchase big-ticket items such as cars or motorcycles. Then, they skip town and pay for nothing. As CBS 2 Investigator Pam Zekman reports, local businesses are left holding the bag.

Russell Haehn has stacks of files on deals documenting his losses at Chicago Cycle last year.

"It's just crushing us," Haehn said. "It's approaching $1 million."

A large part of that loss was created by customer Georgi Popov.

Popov took roughly 24 units – ATVs and motorcycles – from Chicago Cycle in a two month period, and never made one payment on $204,912 worth of cycles.

Haehn said he can't get any of the vehicles back because they're gone, out of the country, and typically sold for double the purchase price here.

Popov also bought six cars at Schaumburg Toyota, adding up to another $296,700 that was never paid for.

The 2 Investigators were not able to locate Popov.

"He's disappeared. He had several addresses. Nobody's seen him," said Michael Kelso, an investigator for the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB).

Kelso tries to recover vehicles before they are exported and has tracked the losses from bust out schemes. He says they add up to $25 million in the Chicago area alone.

He also tracks the scammers, like suspect Adam Kuklicz. In 2007, Kuklicz bought construction equipment cars and motorcycles -- $700,000 worth.

"I asked the same question that everyone else asked. How do these people do it?" Kelso said. "How can you go out and buy $700,000 worth of stuff in three weeks and never pay a dime?"

They do it by going from dealer to dealer, buying as much as they can as fast as they can, knowing there's a 30 to 90 day window between the time something is purchased and when defaults start showing up on credit reports.

As long as their credit looks good to a dealer, "They're going to sell a car as quickly and as often as they can. And the scammers know that." Kelso said.

In another version of the same scam the identities of people with good credit are stolen and then used to steal cars and even rob banks.

Grzgorz Glod was an unemployed carpenter recruited in 2008 to do the deals.

"They offered him easy money, $500 to just sign some paperwork," Des Plaines Police Detective John Rice said.

His handlers supplied Glod with fake IDs using Glod's picture and another man's name. Then they took him to several banks in Des Plaines and other suburbs to apply for $30,000 car loans.

Security cameras captured Glod filling out paper work at one of them, then getting the loan in cash – a bank robber armed with a pen.

"Glod admitted to doing 15 banks and each one of them he'd be paid $500 when each transaction was completed," said Des Plaines Deputy Chief Richard Rozkuszka.

Glod was recently sentenced to four years in prison on for identity theft, but the ringleaders who got the cash and the cars – worth more than half a million dollars – are still out there along with other bust out schemers.

"In the Chicago area we are primarily seeing Eastern Europeans involved in this type of organized crime," said NICB's James Schweitzer.

They are preying on the parts of our economy that are having the hardest time, as we speak.

Like Haehn and Chicago Cycle.

"These are real people that have somehow been educated on how to defraud the United States credit system. They're also doing this in appliances….anything they can get," Haehn said.

Officials say this is a growing national problem that makes it harder for the rest of us to get loans and will result in increased rates when we do get them.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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