6024 - Mailing your checks? Don't!

Take your mail inside the post office to mail it, right? Maybe not...

FERGUSON, Mo. (KMOV) - Before you slip an important document into a mailbox, Ferguson Police are warning you not to mail any checks.

Ferguson Police are investigating at least two dozen cases of check washing, leaving victims out of thousands of dollars.

Since August, Captain Harry Dilworth with Ferguson police said they’ve been investigating at least 24 cases of washed checks. That’s when thieves steal checks from the mail, erase the ink, and alter the payee and amounts.

Dilworth told First Alert 4 that all the checks were mailed from inside the Ferguson Post Office on St. Louis Avenue near South Florissant.

Police believe this is a multi-state operation that involves several people. Most victims are older adults, according to police. Captain Dilworth said they arrested a man connected to these crimes last week, and he had ties to California, Minnesota, and Kansas City.

“We did a search of his motel room and discovered multiple checks and identification,” said Dilworth. He says monies lost range from $1,000-$15,000.

Dilworth said someone helped guide the man to commit this federal crime. Besides washing checks, Dilworth said some are even stealing routing numbers and check numbers to create new checks.

“So we think that the checking information is being sold online to different people out of state,” said Dilworth.

Investigators suspect this is an inside job at USPS - because the checks are being stolen somewhere between the Ferguson post office and the distribution center in downtown St. Louis.

September 2022, First Alert 4 uncovered suspects stealing mail from blue self-serve mailboxes in Chesterfield and Town and Country

“As a matter of standard USPS [Office of Inspector General] OIG protocol, the USPS OIG does not confirm or refute information related to possible ongoing USPS OIG investigations, except in matters where details of the investigation become a matter of public record,” wrote Kevin Cloninger, USPS’s Assistant Special Agent in Charge.

He said to report alleged mail theft, discarded mail, fraud, and other postal crimes committed by postal employees or contractors, please contact the USPS OIG hotline at www.uspsoig.gov/hotline.