The last defendant in a case that blends immigration violations, theft and bank fraud is facing federal charges in Roanoke.

Arturo Tovar-Pena, described by authorities as a leader of a dozen-man criminal "cell," was still at large last year when his two brothers and nine others, all Mexican nationals and all but two in the country illegally, completed their string of guilty pleas.

Prosecutors described an operation in which men from San Vicente, Mexico, were recruited to cross the border illegally and pose as job applicants at construction companies. They returned at night, however, to steal blank payroll checks from the bottom of check packets. The checks were forged, then cashed using false identification documents.

The group run by Tovar-Pena and his brothers was part of a network that probably cost businesses several hundred million dollars over a decade, FBI Agent Kevin Foust said earlier this year.

On Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Hogeboom recalled that most of the group was arrested in March 2005 after visiting Bank of Botetourt branches to cash checks from Scott-Gallaher Inc. of Botetourt County. A bank official called a construction company official, who served on the bank board, and asked how many Hispanics worked for him. When the answer was none, and when the men came back the next business day, the bank called police.

Hogeboom and Foust credited FBI agent Rich Ress with pulling together evidence and investigators from across the country to track the group's actions.

Tovar-Pena, whose indictment lists 24 aliases, was captured on unrelated charges in July, about a month after the last of his co-defendants was sentenced in Roanoke.

Mike Blevins, chief deputy of the U.S. Marshals Service in the Western District of Arkansas, said Tovar-Pena was charged with first- and second-degree fraud and flight after an incident at a Wal-Mart store in Alma, Ark.

Tovar-Pena pleaded guilty to the Arkansas charges on May 15 and was given a three-year suspended sentence, then released to federal marshals, Blevins said.

By the end of last month, Tovar-Pena was in Roanoke, and last week, he was indicted on federal charges of conspiracy, bank fraud and re-entering the United States after being convicted of a felony.

A hearing date has not yet been set for the new charges.

According to court documents, Tovar-Pena has previous U.S. convictions on drug charges in 1989 and 1990, on re-entering the country as a deported alien in 1996 and on eluding examination and inspection in 2000.

Hogeboom noted that deportations had not derailed the group's check thefts and fraud in the past.

But he said he hoped the prison sentences handed out so far in the case -- Tovar-Pena's brothers each received four-year prison terms, another man got six years and others got more than a year -- will help keep similar operations out of Virginia in the future.