Stacks of mail unintentionally left in a lodge room led to the arrest of three crooked Queens postal carriers — and unraveled a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme, officers say.
The group’s alleged ringleader forgot the damning proof when she was pressured to vary rooms on the Yonkers lodge after which scurried to retrieve it however was too late, authorities mentioned, in line with the Journal Information on Monday.
The scheme concerned a COVID-19 advantages rip-off, law-enforcement officers mentioned.
The alleged corrupt mail carriers – Oscar Abreu, Rafael Grullon and Aldo Palomino Jr. – turned wrapped up within the illicit caper in 2020, when the ringleader approached Abreu and requested him to steal mail from the New York Division of Labor alongside his postal route, in line with federal prosecutors.
Abreau initially accepted $200 for each bit of mail he swiped however later squeezed his legal bosses for $500 per parcel, in line with a criticism unsealed final week.
The accused postal employee recruited Grullon and Palomino Jr. to assist steal items of mail because the scheme continued, in line with the US Lawyer for the Southern District of New York.
The alleged ringleader, Yohauris Rodriguez Hernandez, had been serving to to file bogus unemployment-benefit claims within the names of a whole lot of individuals, officers mentioned. When payouts from the Division of Labor have been then mailed off to the unsuspecting folks, the mail carriers intercepted them alongside their routes, in line with federal authorities.
The ring filed greater than 500 unemployment-benefit claims price greater than $16 million-plus — with payouts totaling over $3 million, authorities mentioned.
The enterprise unraveled when Hernandez and one other suspect left a whole lot of items of mail from the Division of Labor behind in a Yonkers lodge room, in line with the feds.
The pair had requested to increase their keep within the room however have been informed it was already booked, the outlet mentioned.
After the duo checked into one other room on the lodge, they realized they’d forgotten the mail in their outdated room and tried to get it again however have been too late, in line with the report. Police had already been known as. When the duo realized the gig was up, they fled however have been caught down the block.
“It's a unhappy day when postal staff allegedly assist different conspirators to commit identification theft,” Postal Inspector in Cost Daniel Brubaker mentioned in a press release.
“Their actions affected a whole lot of harmless victims by enabling their fellow criminals to illegally obtain Covid-19 unemployment advantages by way of the U.S Mail,” he added. “These Letter Carriers have betrayed the general public and confirmed a complete disregard for honesty and the general public belief that was positioned with them.”
The postal staff every face a most of 25 years in jail if convicted. Hernandez has been deported to the Dominican Republic, the place she is from. It’s unclear what occurred to the unnamed lodge suspect.
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