Yankee Ingenuity Helps Thieves Swipe Checks

A gang of thieves used mousetraps, magnets - even the skinny arms of their children - to lift checks out of mailboxes, then used a homemade ink-erasing recipe to doctor them in a scam that netted $600,000, investigators say.

In the past 14 months, 27 banks and credit unions from Miami to West Palm Beach cashed the stolen and altered checks, Postal Inspector Rafael Rivera said Friday. About 175 victims lost $490 to $24,000 each.

The thieves, working at night, often popped open stuffed Postal Service mailboxes in busy residential neighborhoods and stole all of the mail, rifling through it at their leisure for checks, Rivera said.

In some cases, the thieves got more creative.

They used giant magnets - one on the outside and one dropped inside - to trap envelopes against the sides of the mailbox and work them up to the top. They also used glue mousetraps that would stick to letters.

Sometimes, they enlisted their kids’ help.

“They take their small children because they have skinnier arms and they can probably reach in farther,” Rivera said.

And when all those methods didn’t work, “We have instances where they actually take the entire box, take it from the platform, then put it in the back of a van and then drive away.”

Twenty of the major players were arrested Thursday and 90 other people were being sought, investigators said. All face grand theft and forgery charges. Four alleged ringleaders also face charges of racketeering and conspiracy.

Inspectors said the checks were placed in trays with a liquid, made from common household products, that removed the payee’s name and original dollar amount.

“We actually got the information for the formula from someone we arrested,” he said. “We tried it here in the office, and it worked.”

The thieves then paid people - mostly day laborers - to cash the altered checks. Investigators tracked down the gang through these people, who usually showed their own driver’s licenses to cash the checks.