{"id":31282,"date":"2022-04-30T21:25:32","date_gmt":"2022-04-30T21:25:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/?p=31282"},"modified":"2022-04-30T21:25:32","modified_gmt":"2022-04-30T21:25:32","slug":"checks-are-being-stolen-from-usps-mailboxes-and-used-for-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/2022\/04\/30\/checks-are-being-stolen-from-usps-mailboxes-and-used-for-fraud\/","title":{"rendered":"Checks are being stolen from USPS mailboxes and used for fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In January, Steve Rosen dropped a check to the Internal Revenue Service in a blue mailbox a block from his home in the affluent D.C. suburb of Chevy Chase, Md. About two weeks later, his bank called him to alert him to fraud. Someone had stolen his check and rewritten it for $13,000.22.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The 59-year-old lawyer immediately filed a report online with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service but says he never heard back from them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe real horror was, after it happened the first time, I got a whole new bank account, new checks; a month later, I thought this couldn\u2019t happen again,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Rosen put the second check \u2014 for his tree-care service \u2014 into the same U.S. Postal Service mailbox. When he called to ask whether the business had received his payment, it hadn\u2019t. So, he kept an eye on his bank account and again found out that someone had tried to swindle him. That check was repurposed and written out to someone for $2,500.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This time, Rosen didn\u2019t bother with the Postal Inspection Service and instead contacted police in Montgomery County. He was told by the officer taking his report: \u201cYeah, we\u2019ve had a lot of this going on. You\u2019re not the only one.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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During the coronavirus<\/a> pandemic, there has been a massive spike in checks being stolen from the mail across the United States and used in financial fraud, authorities and researchers say. In March, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service alerted the Justice Department.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The stolen checks trend is linked to a \u201csignificant increase\u201d in armed robberies of USPS letter carriers to steal arrow keys, which can open most mailboxes across an entire Zip code, according to a U.S. Postal Inspection Service advisory to the Justice Department. In some cases, one Zip code can encompass an entire city. The primary motive behind these robberies, the March 7 advisory said, is financial theft: \u201cCriminals are stealing mail \u2026 to obtain checks, financial instruments, and personal identifying information to commit bank fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud and identity theft.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Authorities say mail theft has long been a problem, but the use of stolen arrow keys to target USPS mailboxes is <\/b>new. <\/b>Law enforcement officials say it\u2019s not immediately clear why such thefts have increased.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Georgia State University\u2019s Evidence-Based Cybersecurity Research Group<\/a> has spent the past two years collecting evidence across the Internet of checks stolen from the mail and said this type of crime has spread dramatically over the past three to four months.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Poring over platforms used to sell stolen checks <\/b>including Telegram, ICQ and WhatsApp, the team of 15 \u2014 a professor working with graduate and undergraduate students \u2014 first spotted the crime in Florida, California, Texas and New York. Then it started to spread across the country, with the D.C. region recently becoming a new hot spot.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Across the United States, there has been a spike in checks being stolen from blue USPS mailboxes. The video was blurred to hide identifying information. (Video: Telegram)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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On these platforms, the team spotted about 24 checks from Maryland in October, 98 in December and 431 in January. They\u2019ve seen a similar trend for D.C.: 12 checks in October, nine in December, then 82 in January. They say that, in the absence of law enforcement and attention to this issue, they expect these numbers to rise.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In a video interview, one of the group\u2019s researchers showed The Washington Post several photos of checks stolen from individuals and businesses.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThey have amazing technology,\u201d said the researcher, <\/b>who spoke on the condition of anonymity after receiving threats. \u201cWe see some of their labs, and they\u2019re well equipped \u2026 most of the checks we see come from the blue boxes.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The group found that buyers use nail polish remover to erase the intended payee\u2019s name and the amount of the check, replacing the details with their own payee and amount, usually much higher than the original amount. A buyer may also use a fake ID to cash the check at a location such as Walmart.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cOrganized crime groups, local gangs are figuring out there\u2019s nobody to stop them from doing this,\u201d the researcher said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A Post review of Telegram channels dedicated to check fraud found posts advertising thousands of checks for sale across the United States. The payment amounts ranged <\/b>from $8 to <\/b>a business check written out in the amount of <\/b>more than $36,000, while the checks themselves were on offer to potential buyers for upward of $100, topping out at $400 for business checks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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One Telegram seller offered USPS arrow keys for $5,000 and $7,000 to access mailboxes in Maryland and North Carolina. Another offered a Florida key for $3,000. Several channel administrators said they accepted payment only in bitcoin or Cash App.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A Telegram user displays stolen checks for sale. The video has been blurred to hide identifying information. (Video: Telegram)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The price of the key, the Cybersecurity Research Group said, depends on the area the key is from and how many mailboxes it opens.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The U.S. Postal Inspection Service, responding to an inquiry from The Post, declined to give details about the scope of the problem: \u201cIn order to preserve the integrity of our investigations \u2026 the U.S. Postal Inspection Service does not confirm, deny, or otherwise comment on the existence of its ongoing investigations.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Post also asked the Postal Service how it was addressing the problem of stolen arrow keys. <\/b>\u201cWe are continuing to address this issue but unable to provide details for security reasons,\u201d USPS spokesman Dave Partenheimer said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Postal Inspection Service offers rewards up to $50,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the suspects who robbed letter carriers. One wanted poster<\/a> on the Postal Inspection Service website was for suspects involved in robberies that occurred between Nov. 3, 2021, and Jan. 31, 2022, in D.C., Prince George\u2019s County and Montgomery County. It says that postal property, including keys, were stolen.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Montgomery County Police Department Detective Kimberly Ann Pratt says thieves have long targeted residential mailboxes for checks, particularly during the <\/b>Christmas <\/b>season. Eight years ago, she said, the trend was for thieves to go early in the morning, look for raised red flags \u2014 <\/b>which indicate there\u2019s outgoing mail in the box <\/b>\u2014 steal the mail and look for checks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Then in fall of 2020, police saw a shift, Pratt said: \u201cIt was no longer stealing checks from residential mailboxes but from big blue USPS mailboxes that sit on the corner. A lot of the mailboxes we saw were not getting pried, were not broken; the assumption was that they were obtaining keys to get into the blue boxes.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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She said from fall of 2020 to now, Montgomery County police have recorded hundreds of reported incidents of mail theft. The areas hit most have been Bethesda, Potomac and Chevy Chase. Though police couldn\u2019t say why these areas are being targeted, they are among the wealthiest suburbs in the D.C. region.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Pratt said sometimes the bank catches the stolen check or the vendor does, if it doesn\u2019t receive a payment. The majority of the time, she said, it\u2019s the customer who notices. She said Montgomery County police are working with postal inspectors on a \u201clarge-scale investigation\u201d but declined to give details.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Postal Inspection Service, the law enforcement arm of the Postal Service, said in an email to The Post that it is working with local, county, state and federal law enforcement to combat mail theft.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It advised customers to hand outgoing mail to their carrier or mail it at the post office; ask their bank for \u201csecure\u201d checks that are more difficult to alter; and report stolen mail by calling 877-876-2455.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The criminal market for checks is thriving, and the blue mailboxes in <\/b>Steve Rosen\u2019s Zip code \u2014 Chevy Chase\u2019s 20815, where census data shows the median home value is $1,012,700 \u2014 appear to be compromised. The Cybersecurity Research Group showed The Post a photo it found online of four checks for sale, all from 20815 and dated Feb. 10-12. Two of the victims had no idea their checks had gone missing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThat\u2019s really shocking,\u201d Susanna F. Fischer, 60, said when informed of her check seen for sale online.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Fischer, a law professor at Catholic University, had put the check for $100 in a blue mailbox near her home as a gift to her niece for her 27th birthday. \u201cShe said she didn\u2019t receive it, so I thought maybe I didn\u2019t send it,\u201d she said. \u201cI did not think that it could have been stolen.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Also in February, Sarah A. Friedman, 48, dropped a check in a blue mailbox to pay a credit card bill. When told about it being for sale on the Internet, she said, \u201cI was going to check on that because I had gotten a late notice, and I knew it was paid on time.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In Rosen\u2019s case, the two stolen checks were made out to random people, and in both cases the bank restored the money to his account. He says now he doesn\u2019t mail checks, opting instead to pay electronically. He is infuriated that he can no longer rely on the mail.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s a pretty big insult to local citizenry to have s–t stolen from the mail like that. Is that what the Postal Service has come to \u2014 that we can\u2019t mail checks anymore? And the answer is \u2018yes,\u2019 \u201d Rosen said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Meanwhile, the Cybersecurity Research Group researcher \u2014 who uses fake \u201csock puppet\u201d accounts to delve into and research this criminal underworld \u2014 also has become a target.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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On the day The Post first interviewed the researcher, someone sent him a message on his phone saying they know where he lives, then sent him his Social Security number and address. He spent the next week freezing his credit and putting fraud alerts on all his accounts. He has had police and security surveillance outside his home, paid for by his employer, since then.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Despite these efforts, on April 5 he received by mail a debit card for a Citibank checking account that someone had opened in his name.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Jacob Bogage and Monika Mathur contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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