Three Postal Service (USPS) employees and one other individual were arrested in connection with a multi-year, $1.3 million identity theft and fraud scheme conducted in the New York and New Jersey metropolitan area.
According to a statement from the Department of Justice (DOJ), as of December 2018 three postal employees and a civilian accomplice stole credit cards through the mail and then used them at a variety of high-end retail stores in New York and New Jersey.
The postal workers were identified as Nathanael Foucault, Johnathan Persaud , Fabiola Mompoint. They and Devon Richards, who is not a postal worker, were arrested Thursday, the DOJ reported. Five other people facing charges in connection with the case remain at large, the DOJ reported, quoted by USA Today.
The charges include conspiracy to commit fraud with access devices and aggravated identity theft, among others. Each faces lengthy federal prison sentences if convicted of the crimes.
“The defendants took advantage of the public trust we place in US Postal Service employees to his own financial gain,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams wrote in the statement. “Thanks to the diligence of USPIS (the Postal Inspection Service), the NYPD, and the USPS-OIG (the Office of the Inspector General), the defendants will now be held accountable for their brazen criminal conduct.”
In a similar case, in August three Hispanic postmen were arrested on suspicion of committing a million-dollar postal fraud, after a large quantity of mail was found abandoned in a hotel room in Yonkers (NY).
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