The Brownsville Police Department asked for the public's help Tuesday night to find a man accused of forging more than $40,000 in checks from the Brownsville Public Utilities Board.

Police have issued an arrest warrant for Miguel Leija Jr., 23, for forgery. Investigators said that Leija made fake checks by using an account number that PUB uses to pay its vendors.

"We have a break in the case at this point," said Sgt. Jimmy Manrrique with the Brownsville P.D. "We have the person identified that has been committing the forgeries on the PUB's vendors' account. What we need at this point, we need the public's help in locating him and bringing him in."

Since November, detectives have been working the case and at first thought Jose Guerra Rodriguez was their prime suspects, but that turned out not to be the case.

"At first the suspect was Jose Guerra Rodriguez, but we found that he's a federal prisoner. He went in for narcotics trafficking," Manrrique said. "And we were able to identify Leija as the actual person doing this."

Turns out Leija and Rodriquez are friends, authorities said. Detectives said that the break in the case came when Leija recently tired to buy an expensive watch at a Harlingen pawn shop, using a forged check.

"I'm not sure it was really being clever," said John Bruciak, the general manager and CEO for the PUB. "I think it was something that was an eye opener for us that fraud could be committed. Luckily, our staff and management were able to catch that."

Leija is believed to be somewhere in the Harlingen area. Anyone with information on his whereabouts is asked to call the Brownsville Police Department's Crime Stoppers hotline at (956) 546-TIPS.

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