FRANKLIN, MASS. (WHDH) - Police shared a warning Wednesday after a group of suspects stole checks from a set of blue mail drop boxes outside the post office on Main Street in Franklin.
Police in a post on Facebook said a postal worker was recently robbed of a key to the boxes.
Since the robbery, police said suspects have been opening the boxes, rifling through mail, and taking checks that residents drop in the boxes.
Police said suspects have “washed” the checks, changing their value and changing the person to whom they are deposited. The suspects then deposit the checks themselves.
Franklin police said local detectives are investigating alongside personnel from the US Postal Inspection Service.
While the investigation continues, police urged residents to use caution if using the drop boxes outside the post office.
“If you can, use the box inside the Post Office or consider sending checks and other important mail a different way,” police said.
Police said anyone who sees any suspicious activity around the post office should call 508-528-1212 or call 911 in case of emergency.
Law enforcement officials across the country have warned of check washing scams in the past.
Among victims, one man in Boston shared his story with 7NEWS last year, describing an arduous effort to get his money back after he said he was victimized by check washing.
As they contend with incidents of check washing, officials have simultaneously dealt with robberies of postal workers. In multiple cases, including one incident in Dorchester in April, thieves have tried to take postal workers’ keys to get into locked mail boxes.
Police in Franklin did not share any additional information about the postal worker robbery they referenced.
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy in a report last fall, though, said the US Postal Service has noted “a significant increase in mail theft and associated violent crimes directed at letter carriers.”
Beginning in 2020, officials said organized criminal groups started focusing on “low risk, high reward financial crimes,” including check fraud.
“Although there is likely no single cause for this shift, it likely has been driven in part by mass pandemic relief fraud perpetrated during the Covid-19 pandemic, the ease by which financial crimes may be perpetrated utilizing cyber enabled techniques, and a lax prosecutorial climate for property and financial crimes in some U.S. jurisdictions,” officials said.
After authorities strengthened physical security of standard blue mail collection boxes, officials said they noted a massive increase in robberies of mail carriers. There were 64 such robberies nationwide in the 2019 fiscal year, according to the postal service. In the 2022 fiscal year, that number spiked to 412.
Chief Postal Inspector Gary Barksdale said the service has increased its efforts to protect employees and the mail, employing a multipronged approach including efforts to further “enhance the physical security of mail receptacles,” increase awareness among employees on ways to stay safe, and pursue “high impact” investigations into attacks on employees and mail theft.
“The Postal Inspection Services is committed to protecting all postal employees, securing the mail, and defending the Postal Service’s infrastructure from criminal attack,” officials said in a conclusion to their 2023 report. “It is in the Postal Inspection Service’s mission to do so and we take that responsibility with great weight.”
“As the Postal Service, its employees, and its infrastructure face increased criminal attack, the Postal Inspection Service reaffirms its commitment to its mission,” officials continued. “The Postal Inspection Service and the Postal Service are making, and will continue to make into the future, significant investments of time, capital, personnel, and resources to protect all postal employees and the mail.”
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