U.S. Department of Justice

Federal Bureau of Investigation

257 East 200 South, Suite 1200
Salt Lake City, Utah 84111

For Immediate Release

Date: March 26, 2008

Contact: SA Juan T. Becerra
Salt Lake City, Utah
(801) 579-1400

Special Agent In Charge, Timothy J. Fuhrman, announced that:

The Salt Lake City field office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested Shaun Gregory Morgan pursuant to a scheme perpetrated to defraud Zions First National Bank. The conduct alleged to have occurred violates Title 8 United States Code, section 1344.

The scheme enlisted the use of a local attorney’s trust account to accommodate the transfer of funds to the shareholders of Emerald Forest, Inc. for the purpose of purchasing 48 percent of the stock ownership in the company. This was accomplished by depositing counterfeit cashier’s checks drawn on a bank called First Mutual into the attorney trust account to create the appearance of having sufficient funds to purchase stock in Emerald Forest Inc. The two counterfeit cashier’s checks deposited totaled $1,070,000. The funds were then transferred and deposited into the Zions account to sellers of the stock at Emerald Forest Inc.

Zions Bank initially uncovered the scheme to defraud and referred it to the FBI for investigation. Subsequent investigation led the FBI to contact Washington Mutual Bank which determined that the ABA routing number used on the counterfeit checks belonged to their bank.

On March 17, 2007, Morgan admitted to Zions Bank that he purposely used fraudulent cashier’s checks to finance the aforementioned stock purchase.

The FBI is actively investigating this matter in conjunction with the United States Attorney’s Office. The FBI requests the assistance of the public to provide any information regarding other types of fraud against financial institutions that may have been perpetrated by Morgan and others yet unknown.