St. Paul police are investigating a report that someone passed bad checks to Girl Scouts, getting away with more than 600 boxes of cookies throughout the Twin Cities.

The Girl Scouts of Minnesota and Wisconsin River Valleys office in St. Paul contacted police Friday to say they received nine worthless checks — with the same name on them — for Girl Scout cookies in St. Paul, Maplewood, Minneapolis, Shakopee, Brooklyn Park and other locations, according to Sgt. Mike Ernster, a St. Paul police spokesman. The Girl Scouts were scammed of about $2,400, he said.

“These young girls work hard to sell their cookies,” Ernster said. “They work with honesty and fairness in mind as they make these transactions. To think that a person would target them for this type of fraud is unthinkable. This case is under investigation, but we are optimistic that the person responsible will be held accountable.”

Police did not release the name on the checks.

Jolene Ross, director of product program at Girl Scouts River Valleys, said individual troops alerted them to the bad checks, as did their internal audits.

“We work with the troops so if anything like this happens, (the council office) takes care of it, so they’re not burdened with the lost money,” she said.

Girl Scouts River Valleys, which covers 49 counties in southern Minnesota, western Wisconsin and one county in Iowa, sold more than 4.4 million packages of cookies this year, Ross said.

She said it’s rare to encounter someone defrauding them.

St. Paul police ask anyone with information to call them at 651-291-1111.