New Jersey Check Cashing Company Ordered To Pay More Than $1 Million, On Probation After Admitting Failure To File Currency Transaction Reports

CAMDEN, N.J. – GB Check Cashing LLC, a check cashing company licensed in New Jersey, pleaded guilty today and was ordered to forfeit over $1 million for failing to file Currency Transaction Reports as required by law, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced.

The co-owners of GB Check Cashing LLC, Dalwinder S. Ghuman, 45, and Talvinder S. Ghuman, 53, both of Mt. Laurel, N.J., entered the plea on behalf of GB Check Cashing before U.S. District Judge Robert B. Kluger in Camden federal court. Following the guilty plea, Judge Kluger sentenced GB Check Cashing to one year of probation and ordered the company to forfeit $1,086,894.

According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:

GB Check Cashing is a money service business the Ghumans, brothers, have co-owned and operated since 2003. The business has four storefronts, all of which are located in New Jersey: in Pennsauken, Delran, Carteret and East Windsor. Under federal law, such companies are obligated to file a Currency Transaction Report (CTR) whenever they are involved in a transaction for the payment, receipt or transfer of more than $10,000.

From September 2010 through June 2011, an individual referred to in court documents as “CC,” who operated a check cashing business in New Jersey without the appropriate license, brought several checks from customers of that business to GB Check Cashing and exchanged them for cash, less a one percent fee. Because the value of those checks was usually greater than $10,000, so was the amount of cash CC received. GB Check Cashing documented each transaction to make it appear as though CC’s customers went directly to GB Check Cashing to cash their checks.

In all, GB Check Cashing cashed approximately $1,148,247.63 of CC’s customers’ checks, paying approximately $1,086,894.33 to CC in increments greater than $10,000. GB Check Cashing did not file a CTR for any of those transactions.

U.S. Attorney Fishman credited special agents of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Andrew M. McLees, with the investigation.

The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Lakshmi Srinivasan Herman of the U.S. Attorney’s Office Economic Crimes Unit in Newark.

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Defense counsel: Lawrence S. Lustberg Esq., Newark, N.J.
                                    Henry Klingeman Esq., Newark

GB Check Cashing Information