Malden man sentenced to nine months in prison for bank fraud

  Lajerran Long, 27, of Malden, will spend the next nine months in prison for his involvement in a scheme to steal money from customer bank accounts. According to federal law enforcement officials, Long and other co-conspirators paid individuals to go into numerous banks and withdraw funds from customer accounts using fake forms of identification. In addition, bank tellers were recruited to process the transactions without questioning the false IDs. The money was then taken to other banks and deposited into accounts that were linked to businesses that did not exist.

  Specifically, federal authorities said, Long recruited a teller at Santander Bank to take part in the operation. From December 2017 to January 2018, co-conspirators used this bank employee to process a series of withdrawals totaling more than $800,000. However, Santander was able to recover the majority of the funds.

  Long pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud conspiracy on June 14 and was sentenced on October 19. In addition to the nine-month prison sentence, Long will be under supervised release for three years. He will also pay $357,333 in restitution and a forfeiture of $5,000.