Thieves go 'fishing' for checks in mailboxes

Bailey Avenue resident Barbara Luray says she has been the victim of mail theft no fewer than three times.

She said she has tried sending money to a relative upstate and every time, months passed without the parcels arriving. After visiting the Kingsbridge Post Office, she was told she may have been the victim of a crime known as mailbox fishing.

“When I checked the places where the money order should have gone, it never arrived, but I didn’t put a trace on it because it wasn’t a lot of money,” said Ms. Luray, the vice president of the Ft. Independence Houses’ tenants’ association. “Unfortunately, a lot of people pay their bills and send checks and money orders and stuff through the mail, and someone is going into these mailboxes and taking the mail out.”

Mailbox fishing is a crime in which someone uses a coat hanger or long wire to pick mail out of postal boxes on the street. According to Capt. Terence O’Toole, the commanding officer of the 50th Precinct, mailbox fishing is an old practice among criminals.

“One of the prime mailbox fishers in the Bronx is a third-generation mailbox fisher,” he said. “His grandfather was a mailbox fisher, his father was a mailbox fisher and he’s a mailbox fisher.”

According to Capt. O’Toole, the NYPD does regular raids to stop would-be mail thieves in their tracks, but state authorities are responsible for prosecuting offenders.

“In 2014, the United States Postal Service retrofitted all mailboxes — I believe there are 63 mailboxes in the Bronx — that placed a kind of grate to prevent mailbox fishing,” he said. “Apparently, it is not as effective as they would have liked.”

USPS did not immediately answer a press inquiry for this article.

Elderly people who pay their bills by mail are the main victims of mailbox fishing today.

Ms. Luray mentioned another box that she remembers being targeted not long ago.

“In Marble Hill they had that problem and they basically moved the mailbox so people had to go to the post office,” she said. “My problem with that is, in my building we have a lot of senior citizens and it isn’t fair that they would have to start walking just to mail off their bills and the sad part is that when they put this mail in the box, they’re assuming that this mail is going to be delivered to its destination.”

According to Ms. Luray, video footage in front of the Bailey Avenue mailbox she formerly used for sending money orders caught someone tampering with the mailbox, but no action has been taken.

The USPS has its own investigators for cases of mail theft. They are known as postal inspectors.  Representatives of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service visit local community boards and council meetings every year around the winter holidays to warn residents about mail crimes such as mailbox fishing.

“In my previous life as a grand larceny detective I used to meet them up in Yonkers, at their head quarters,” Capt. O’Toole said. “The U.S. attorney’s office really hasn’t taken an interest in the cases… From what I understand, they are beginning to take more of an interest in it and are planning to prosecute some of these more prolific mailbox fishers.”