Why robbers are hitting postal workers in Augusta, elsewhere

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - In a national trend that’s also showing up in the CSRA, mail carriers are being robbed at gunpoint so thieves can get the master keys to mailboxes.

They’re after checks, as two Columbia County victims found out.

On Dec. 4, a Martinez 70-year-old told deputies she’d mailed a check for $238, depositing it in a drop box at 374 Furys Ferry Road. Within 24 hours, someone else had fraudulently cashed the check for $2,034.

Something similar happened a couple of days earlier to an 80-year-old Evans resident. She’d made out a check to an exterminator and mailed it from the drop box at the Evans post office. Someone stole the check, altered it to $4,500 and deposited it using a mobile app. Luckily, her bank refunded the money.

Lured by checks like these, robbers are targeting mail carriers to steal keys to drop boxes like the one the Columbia County victims used.

In one recent Augusta robbery, a mail carrier was targeted Nov. 13 at about 4:55 p.m. at 3461 Jonathan Circle, according to the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office.

The victim told deputies he was ing out mail when a suspect wearing all black and a face mask ran up and grabbed his right arm. An accomplice in a gray hoodie pushed a pistol into his chest and robbed him. The thieves then ran away.

The U.S. Postal Inspection Service released two pictures of the suspects and offered a reward of up to $150,000 for tips.

Something similar happened over a year ago in the 400 block of Carmell Circle at the Rocky Creek Mobile Home Park, with the robber wielding a knife. A suspect was ultimately arrested.

It’s a nationwide problem. Recently, three different carriers were robbed in one day in Louisville, Ky.

“One of our main jobs is to protect our people, along with the mail stream, and to see them go through such a traumatic event is very shocking, it’s upsetting, and it obviously inspires us to work harder to catch these individuals,” said postal inspector Jeff Sagrecy.

The surge in robberies has building for some time.

The U.S. Postal Inspection Service says there were 153 mail carrier robberies nationwide in 2020.

By 2022, that had risen to 471. The thieves got 406 master keys in those robberies – and just 74 were ever recovered.

It’s mostly to get checks people are mailing, said Brian Renfroe of the National Association of Letter Carriers. He said the criminals use elaborate “check-washing” schemes to deposit money from checks that aren’t made out to them.

Postal drop boxes and community mailboxes, like the ones you see at apartment complexes, are treasure troves for these criminals.

The U.S. Postal Service says there’s been an increase in high-volume thefts from boxes like these, with 38,500 incidents in 2022.

The check-washing schemes have been going on for quite a while in the Augusta area. News 12 covered the problem over a year ago, when there was a big outbreak of these cases. Many of the stolen checks were for thousands of dollars, with one real estate business in Augusta losing $16,500 when eight of its checks were stolen out of a postal drop box.

As the Martinez victim learned, the thieves can get more out of your than what the check is made out for, with the culprits often using mobile deposit apps to steal the money.

The Postal Service hasn’t gone so far as to tell people not to use the blue drop boxes. But officials do say to make sure you drop off your mail before the last collection of the day – to make sure your outgoing mail doesn’t sit in the box overnight.

This is also why two years ago, USPS said it was taking some key steps to keep your mail and its postal workers safe.

Your I-TEAM went looking for those security updates, but it wasn’t easy getting you those answers.

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