Three men face mail theft, bank fraud and other federal charges with authorities accusing them of stealing mail from post offices throughout Southern California and about $800,000 from victims by depositing stolen checks and immediately withdrawing the cash.
They ran a scheme from November 2022 to August 2023, U.S. Postal Inspection Service officials said, working with four juveniles and others who provided bank-account information.
One of the men and one of the juveniles first deposited a stolen check for $1,800 at a Wells Fargo bank branch in Highland Park on Nov. 28, 2022, according to a federal grand jury indictment laying out the allegations and the charges.
Three weeks later, mail was stolen from an apartment complex in Highland Park and one of the men began soliciting others on social media asking for bank accounts that were more than two years old in order to deposit stolen checks, court records show. Those who supplied their bank information would get a cut of the stolen money, authorities said.
Over the ensuing months, two of the men and juveniles allegedly stole mail from the back docks of post offices in Studio City, Azusa, Upland, Anaheim, El Segundo and West Hills, court documents contend.
At least some of the suspects unsuccessfully tried to steal mail from branches in La Canada, where the doors were locked, and in La Mirada, where they were confronted by an employee, the indictment says. They also are accused of conducting surveillance on branches in Riverside and Corona but did not steal mail from either location.
The third man provided a car for $600, the indictment says, that was used to commit post office robberies.
After stealing mail from an Anaheim branch on East Lincoln Avenue on April 4, 2023, two of the men and three juveniles stopped in a parking lot behind a restaurant on State College Boulevard to open the mail, separate stolen checks and discard the rest in a nearby dumpster, court documents say.
An Anaheim police officer approached the car, but the suspects fled — leading police on a pursuit on the 57 and 60 freeways before the suspects ditched the car in Rowland Heights and ran off. While fleeing police on the freeway, the suspects threw stolen mail out of the windows, court documents show.
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After stealing checks, one of the men and some of the juveniles would solicit, on Instagram, others to give them bank information to deposit the funds and quickly make withdrawals or transfers, officials said.
The Postal Inspection Service did not say how the stolen checks were cashed. How the suspects were identified by federal authorities was not disclosed, either, but it was revealed that FBI agents searched the homes of one of the men and a juvenile in August, leading the man to post on Instagram that he was raided by the FBI and to “delete anything you got of me,” the indictment says.
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