A Hialeah man and woman were arrested on mail fraud charges in an alleged scheme involving stolen checks, police said.

According to the official report, Yania Gato Romero, 40, and Yohan Mayo, 36, were arrested on April 3 and face multiple charges of mail theft and possession of five or more pieces of personally identifying information.

On April 3, surveillance video captured a black Nissan Sentra “pulling up next to the mailbox, where the passenger took an envelope containing a personal check that was about to be mailed,” the Port Orange Police Department said.

Suspected vehicle

Surveillance video and automatic license-plate readers helped authorities identify the suspected vehicle, which was registered to Gato Romero, according to the arrest report.

After issuing a BOLO — a “be on the lookout” alert — deputies with the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office located the vehicle in Deltona, in the parking lot of a Publix. Officers later watched a man and a woman leave the store and get into the suspected car.

As the pair tried to leave the parking lot, deputies conducted a traffic stop and identified the driver as Yohan Mayo and the passenger as Yania Gato Romero, the report says.

Courtesy of the Port Orange Police Department.

Tens of thousands of dollars in checks

According to officials, during a search of the vehicle, authorities found “approximately 40 checks with an estimated value of $47,000, including the victim’s check that prompted the initial report.”

Investigators were able to identify 25 victims in Volusia and Flagler counties who, in most cases, didn’t realize their checks had been stolen until police contacted them, according to the report.

Some checks were donations

Among the checks recovered, authorities found payments written as donations to organizations that help children and animals, including St. Jude Hospital and food banks, among others, the document states. Most of the remaining checks were intended for bill and service payments.

Authorities notified the U.S. Postal Inspection Service about the mail thefts, which led to a federal investigation into both suspects.

Portions of this story were translated from Spanish with the help of a generative artificial intelligence tool. An NBC 6 editor reviewed the translation.