Free Republic

I’ve been documenting a less high-tech threat emerging in recent months: a surge in stolen checks. Criminals are targeting U.S. Postal Service and personal mailboxes to pilfer filled-out checks and sell them over the internet. The buyers alter the payee and amount listed on the checks to rob victims’ bank accounts of thousands of dollars. While banks typically bear the financial burden and reimburse targeted accounts, criminals can use the checks to steal victims’ identities, which can have severe consequences. For the past two years, we’ve been surveilling 60 black market channels on the internet to learn more about the...

Three people ran a scheme to steal thousands of undelivered Amazon packages but were busted by cops after they dumped hundreds of boxes in Oklahoma, authorities said. One man accused in what the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office called a “massive Amazon theft ring” was apparently a third-party delivery driver for the company who may have loaded extra pallets on a truck, cops said. The stolen packages were taken to a home in Luther... some still wrapped on pallets, cops said..."...stored throughout the home in almost every room and filled the storm shelter..."

A bizarre call to a Troy hotel unearthed a slew of possible crimes linked to the people inside one room, including kidnapping, drug use, mail theft, identity theft, lying several times to officers and kicking out the window of a police car. At 6:27 a.m. May 20, Troy police officers were called to the Hawthron Suites at 2600 Livernois Road for a welfare check. Officials said the woman who called said her name was “Mailey” and that she had “awoken from a dead sleep” because of a disturbance. She asked to meet police near the main hotel lobby, according to...

CORONA: Stinky strategy punishes package pilferers Corona-area residents are setting out prop packages filled with poo to prevent pilfering. They say mail thieves are getting out of control in their neighborhoods. Fed up with thieves stealing their precious packages, Corona-area residents have banded together to teach them a smelly lesson. "They're calling it a movement," said Michaela Roekle, who set a box of her own out a few days ago. In a prop package with a fake address label attached, Roekle placed a special gift from her son, Braven, and dog, Midnight. It's sat on her stoop Tuesday, waiting for...

IDENTITY theft has caused $56 billion in losses in 2005, according to a California research firm that studies the problem. Governmental agencies suggest that 10 million Americans are victims of identity theft each year. But most of that illegal activity comes from online thieves hacking into computers, stealing credit card numbers, bank card account numbers or Social Security Card numbers and using that stolen "identity" to buy merchandise or liquefy bank accounts. A more elaborate scheme discovered earlier this week had eastern European and Asian hackers busting into customer accounts of TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. and E-Trade Financial Corp. in...