A girl has been charged with stealing checks from mailboxes, altering and cashing practically a half-million {dollars}’ price.
A automobile stopped for rushing on Colesville Highway in Silver Spring turned out to carry a conveyable test fraud operation.
Tons of of enterprise and private checks belonging to totally different folks, 1000’s in money, a printer and clean test printing paper had been discovered within the Chrysler 200 in February 2022.
The courtroom paperwork additionally checklist two different objects: a U.S. Postal Service Mail provider’s bag and hat.
These issues, stated Montgomery County State’s Lawyer John McCarthy, made their prison actions go nearly unnoticed.
“They’d’ve seen what would’ve appeared like an insignia that this was a U.S. postal employee doing their job, working arduous for us at 9:30 at evening,” he stated. “In actual fact, what they had been doing was emptying out a mailbox.”
McCarthy stated the automobile’s contents helped craft a case in a irritating sequence of crimes that started in Fall of 2020.
Bethesda and Silver Spring skilled a considerable amount of mail thefts.
Suspects obtained from Postal Service letter carriers — by way of pressure in some circumstances — what are generally known as “arrow keys.” They’d acquire entry into blue mailboxes late at evening. Stolen checks had been altered, deposited and instantly withdrawn for money.
Terri Tolliver with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, which can be concerned within the investigation, urges warning with the blue bins whereas safety continues to be upgraded.
“If in case you have the chance, take it into the submit workplace,” Tolliver stated. “Should you can’t get to the submit workplace, we have now women and men letter carriers in your neighborhood. Hand that essential mail on to the letter provider, they usually’ll guarantee that it will get safely to its vacation spot.
As a part of the investigation, police contacted the house owners of all of the checks discovered, telling them that cash they thought they had been sending to pay a utility invoice or to a grandchild, ended up within the arms of thieves.
