CHEEKTOWAGA, N.Y. (WKBW) — A Cheektowaga post office collection box was broken into, leading to hundreds of checks stolen, altered and cashed by thieves. Now, three people have been arrested in connection to those thefts.
The Cayuga Street post office in Cheektowaga is a popular spot for people to drop off their mail, but according to a criminal complaint from the US Attorneys’ Office, it hasn’t been the safest option.
One of the victims of this string of stolen checks, the letter carriers’ union itself.
“Tens of thousands of dollars,” President of the National Association of Letter Carriers Branch 3 David Grosskopf Jr. said. “Somebody had our checks in New Jersey, attempting to cash them. The bank called us right away, we told them we didn’t make any checks out to anybody in New Jersey, we don’t know why they are trying to cash them.”
Grosskopf told me just about a month ago 20-30 of their checks were stolen out of blue collection boxes on Cayuga Street, then the checks were “washed.”
“Check washing is when an individual steals a check out a mailbox. Then they use simple household chemicals to erase who the payee is and the amount, then they make them payable to themselves,” former FBI agent and CEO of Global Security IQ Holly Hubert said.
According to that criminal complaint, this is far from a one-time incident.
It says there have been “hundreds of complaints from individuals and businesses, complaining that they mailed envelopes containing checks from Buffalo metro-area blue collection boxes, which were stolen, altered and cashed.”
“Shocked to be honest, I never imagined the blue box was unsafe,” Grosskopf said.
After police did a stakeout over the weekend, they found three people breaking into the boxes with a key, taking mail and driving off.
Police followed that group pulled them over and found “a substantial amount of U.S. Mail” in the car.
The three people in the car, Eric Robinson, Lamor Bolden and Antonio Jones Jr. were arrested and charged by criminal complaint with conspiracy and theft of mail, which according to the US Attorneys’ Office carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Grosskopf told me the postal service is in the process of switching to safer electronic locks on the boxes, and that if you have any concerns about the collection boxes, you can drop your mail off inside with a clerk instead.
