CHEEKTOWAGA, N.Y. — There is now a federal case against three men accused of stealing the mail while police were watching.
Mail theft is a growing problem here and across the country with postal workers at risk in some cases as we've seen in Western New York.
While the U.S. Postal inspectors and police would not go on camera Wednesday to talk about this case, the letter carriers union is sounding off. David J. Grosskopf, Jr. is the President of Branch 3/Western New York of the National Association of Letter Carriers.
"We're not going to stand for this. If you do this there's going to be a severe price to pay," Grosskopf said.
His reaction to news that three men have been arrested on federal mail theft and conspiracy charges facing up to a maximum five years in prison. They are identified as 32-year-old Michael Robinson, 26-year-old Lamor Runell Bolden, and 24-year-old Antonio Jones, Jr.
All three suspects were released with conditions and are due back in court.
Federal prosecutors say they were spotted during a police surveillance operation. Police say they drove a dark-colored SUV at 1:30 a.m. Tuesday as they approached mail collection boxes outside the Cayuga Road post office near the airport in Cheektowaga.
Prosecutors say they used a key to open those boxes to get mail with a substantial amount of it, some found opened, in that vehicle when police pulled it over.
Police say they also found a so called arrow key that postal workers use to open mail collection boxes.
Grosskopf pointed out: "We've got quite a few of these keys, not only here in Western New York but nationwide, that are missing. There's obviously an issue with check washing and criminals."
Check washing is a process used by thieves to actually alter checks stolen from the mail, with written-in names and amounts, to steal money from the accounts of those people who wrote them.
In fact, Grosskopf says his own union's checks in the mail were intercepted.
"It was a Saturday night that I dropped our checks in these exact boxes here at Cayuga Drive. Sunday morning that box was opened early in the morning. Those checks were stolen, and by Tuesday morning, my union payroll checks were being cashed in New Jersey. They're very sophisticated. They're very good at what they do. They've been doing it for quite a while," Grosskopf said.
Hamburg Police said they have not been able to determine if there was a link with the early August knifepoint robbery of a letter carrier in a residential neighborhood during which one of those arrow keys was taken.
Grosskopf says the postal service hopes to eventually start using electronic scanners and digital locks on those mailboxes so if a scanner is stolen, the access code could be changed to lock out the would be thieves.