ST. GEORGE — Two suspects are in jail facing more than a dozen felony charges after a fraud-in-progress call at a bank in Washington City tied the pair to similar alleged crimes and attempts at branches throughout Washington County.

Washington City officers were dispatched Wednesday to a bank on West Telegraph Street to a report of a fraud in progress.  According to the affidavit filed by a Washington City Police detective in support of the arrest, the bank employee told dispatch a man at the branch attempted to cash what appeared to be a fraudulent check. 

Officers arrived and spoke to the bank manager who said the same man had reportedly tried to pass forged checks at other branches using different identification cards and documents, prompting an alert to other local branches from one of the banks affected.

That alert followed an incident at a bank branch on East Tabernacle in St. George where one of the suspects cashed an $8,000 check written out to a “Samuel Villalobos” and presented the teller with a Texas driver’s license as identification. 

It was only after the suspect left with the cash that bank employees inspected the draft more closely and found it to be fraudulent, the report alleged. 

The manager contacted several other branches and provided details of the transaction, in addition to a description of the suspect.

At a branch on River Road in St. George, the same suspect allegedly presented a $9,000 check to be cashed using a driver’s license issued out of Illinois. The teller reportedly turned the suspect away and declined to cash the check, due to concerns over the draft’s authenticity. 

By the time the suspect reached the Washington City branch to cash a $9,000 check under the name of Villalobos, bank employees were already alerted to the suspicious activity and called the police while the suspect was inside the bank.  

The branch manager also told officers they had discovered the accounts the fraudulent checks were being drafted from had been compromised and were in the process of freezing those accounts, the officer noted in the report. 

Officers spoke to the suspect who was still at the bank, who initially identified himself to officers only as “Samuel” and later provided investigators with his real name, Yadrian Leyva Leyva, 33, of Las Vegas. This matched his driver’s license issued out of Nevada. 

The suspect was detained and searched incident to arrest, during which, officers recovered two different state ID cards issued out of Texas and Illinois. When the cards were checked on the national crime database, however, both turned out to be invalid. 

Officers also recovered a $9,000 check written from the same account the bank was in the process of freezing, along with a bank card in another individual’s name. 

During a canvass of the area for an accomplice or “getaway driver,” officers noticed a white passenger car with a temporary Florida license plate in an adjacent parking lot to the west of the bank, and while speaking with officers, the driver — Adrian Aristide Leyva, 38, of Tampa, Florida — identified himself Leyva’s brother.

The pair had been seen earlier that day eating at a restaurant by another patrol officer, leading authorities to suspect the brothers were working together, with one keeping watch outside of the bank, while the second was inside attempting to cash the fake checks. 

Both men were transported to the Washington City Police Department for an interview, and a Spanish-speaking Homeland Security Investigations agent arrived to help translate during the interview. 

While speaking with police, Yadrian Leyva said he had no idea why he was at the police department, since he was “just trying to cash a paycheck” that he said came from his boss for some roofing work he had completed. 

He was unable to provide any information about his boss, other than his first name, which was the same name listed on the account the draft was written on andthe same account that had been compromised and then frozen. 

The suspect also denied going to any other branches to cash checks, but when confronted about the $8,000 check that was cashed days earlier, the suspect admitted to cashing the check but told detectives he no longer had the money, adding he “gave it away to an unknown person.” However, he could not provide any further information on where the proceeds went, the report said.

When pressed further, the suspect told officers he would not answer any more questions without an attorney present. 

During an interview with the brother, Adrian Leyva, the suspect said he did not know why he was being questioned and “acted confused,” the officer wrote. The suspect explained he had met up with his brother in Florida on Sunday after having not seen him in more than five years since he lived in Cuba, he said.

He said the two had traveled to Southern Utah in search of work so that his wife and children could relocate to the area from their home in Cuba.  

When asked why he was found sitting in the vehicle parked away from the bank, he said he was waiting for his brother who was inside the bank, but said he did not know why his brother had gone into the bank or what he was doing in there.

He also denied going to any other branches with his brother and said he didn’t know where any other banks were located. When pressed further, he told officers the pair had gone to “one other unknown place” and he was told to wait in the car while his brother used the bathroom. 

The suspect denied having any knowledge of any checks being passed, nor was he able to provide any other explanation for his actions that day. 

Following the interviews, both suspects were transported to Purgatory Correctional Facility and booked into jail facing 17 felony charges. Each faces three second-degree counts that include two counts of producing false identification and one count of theft. They also face six counts of possession of a forgery device, three counts of forgery, two counts of theft, along with one count of pattern of criminal activity, unlawful acquisition of a financial card and criminal conspiracy — each a third-degree felony.

At the time of the incidents, the detective noted that Adrian Leyva was in the country temporarily with no ties to Utah or the community. The suspect also has the ability and connections to obtain fake identification to conceal his identity to avoid apprehension and has shown his lack of regard for the criminal justice system and for the community. 

The officer asked the court to place a no-bail hold on both suspects based on the likelihood they would flee and continue victimizing other innocent people if released, in addition to the two warrants issued for Yadrian Leyva’s arrest on two active cases involving similar crimes. 

The request was approved and both suspects remain in custody in Washington County without bail. 

This report is based on statements from court records, police or other responders and may not contain the full scope of findings. Persons arrested or charged are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law or as otherwise decided by a trier-of-fact.

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