Two men have been charged recently in mail fraud crimes. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District is highlighting how to protect your mail through flyers translated into English, Spanish and Mandarin. Postal Inspectors and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York encourage all mail theft victims to report it directly to the Postal Inspection Service.
A four-count indictment was unsealed today charging Kevin Grant with being a felon in possession of ammunition, possession of five or more false identification documents, possessing stolen United States Postal Service (USPS) arrow keys, and possessing stolen mail. Tyrone Santos was indicted for the assault and robbery of two USPS letter carriers. The indictment charges Santos with two counts for each robbery of a U.S. Postal Service employee and two counts for the theft of the postal keys from those employees.
“As these cases demonstrate, whether it is breaking into a Postal relay box, and possessing a ghost gun or assaulting postal workers, our Office will use all tools available to prosecute those who harm our public servants or public services,” said Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. “I encourage all to educate themselves and take steps to protect their mail, and for bad actors to recognize the consequences involved in these crimes.”
On September 5, 2023, Grant was observed in a black BMW 535 series sedan with Florida license plate #DEP3 that was involved in the unauthorized accessing of a USPS relay box in the Flatbush area of Brooklyn. Similarly, on September 11, 2023, video surveillance captured the vehicle involved in the theft of mail from a relay box in the Parkville area of Brooklyn.
On October 3, 2023, NYPD officers initiated a traffic stop of similar vehicle consistent, as the officers approached the vehicle, the defendant, who was the sole occupant of the vehicle, rolled down his window, observed the officers, and then fled in the vehicle. After a chase, the defendant abandoned the vehicle and fled on foot. NYPD officers seized the vehicle and conducted an inventory search, during which they discovered a personally manufactured firearm without a serial number (also known as a “ghost gun”) loaded with 15 rounds of ammunition and an additional 39 rounds of ammunition.
The officers also found evidence related to the mail thefts, including the same Florida license plate. In addition, within a duffle bag in the vehicle, they found genuine postal arrow keys for the Flatbush area and the Parkville area, a postal uniform, mail addressed to individuals in the Flatbush Area and approximately 100 checks not belonging to the defendant.
NYPD officers also uncovered approximately five fraudulent social security cards with names of other individuals on them, blank credit cards, credit cards with the names of other individuals on them, several identification documents with the defendant’s picture but bearing different names and additional identification documents bearing other pictures and names.
As alleged in the criminal complaint previously filed against Santos, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) was investigating two robberies of U.S. Postal Service mail carriers while they were on their routes. Both robberies took place two weeks apart, on September 30, 2023 and October 14, 2023, and bore similar characteristics.
In both robberies, the perpetrator surveiled young, female postal carriers on their mail routes then accosted them with a weapon, in the first robbery using what appears to be a pipe and in the second robbery using a firearm, demanded their arrow keys, and then fled the scene. Both robberies took place in a very limited geographic area, within four blocks of each other, and the perpetrator fled to the same residential building after both robberies.
The investigation led authorities to Santos, who was arrested on October 20, 2023, and charged by a federal criminal complaint with the theft of a postal key from a U.S. Postal Service mail carrier. Santos was arrested in his Brooklyn residence without incident and arrested on first-degree robbery charges.
You can report mail theft, identity theft, fraud or other crimes involving the U.S. mail by calling the Postal Inspection Service’s national toll-free number at 1-877-876-2455 or by going to uspis.gov/report and filing an electronic report.
