mldetroit, You're right, it's not the pigeon drop.


But the subsequent description, makes me think it is it is even less likely that it was the act of any organized group.

It is a very short con with a high risk to reward ratio.

First the risk.
Grifter comes to town, takes the lay of the land, finds out where likely marks hang out.
Of the marks he meets, two out of three will be unsuitable, no money, no bank card, or they tell the guy to FOAD right off the bat.
Of each that fill his need, he will have to gain his confidence, cut him out of the herd and broach the subject of bank fraud.
Of these guys, two out of three will be too smart or too honest to go along.

To find the two marks in this town, the grifter has chatted up 18 people, and explained the crime to six of them.
This could take all day.

That is a lot of people who've seen your face. The only way to reduce your risk is to be across the county line by morning.

Now the reward.
Since the mark is instructed to report a theft right away, the prize is limited to the one withdrawal, minus the marks cut.
The best the grifter can count on is the standard $500 daily withdrawal limit. I would guess the mark wouldn't do this for any less than half.

Go our con-man worked all day, and came away with $500. By the time you add in expenses, (gas, meals, motel, drinks to ply the mark) he's probably clearing less than $400 a day.

That's might be enough for some jamoke working his way to Fresno, but not if there are a lot of mouths to feed.

This only makes sense as an organized effort if the 99% of the cases that the cops thought were legit, were actually part of this scam.

I think it much more likely that these two nitwits got bilked by some hooker (who may or may not be associated with the GD), and this mysterious stranger story is the best thing they could come up with to keep their wives from finding out.