Somebody stamp out these mail thieves!<\/p>\n
Scooter-riding sleazeballs have been shamelessly stealing letters from a Greenwich Village mailbox during the holiday season\u2019s postal paradise. <\/p>\n
Surveillance footage obtained by The Post shows the not-so-merry mooches ride up on mopeds or scooters to the mailbox at University Place and East Ninth Street and rifle through it on four different recent mornings.<\/p>\n
The thefts coincided with a spate of fishy checks being cashed in the area near Washington Square Park \u2013 including from one local resident who sent a $150 check through the mailbox, only later to see it deposited for 13 times the original amount.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a check for $1,950 and I thought, \u2018I haven\u2019t written a check for this,’\u201d said the 69-year-old former tech staffer, who wished to remain anonymous.<\/p>\n
Thieves have been caught on video four separate times recently stealing from a Greenwich Village mailbox. Obtained by the NY Post<\/p>\n
Local worker Isha Matko said thieves stole her rent check from the mailbox years ago. Georgett Roberts\/NY Post<\/p>\n
The rash of mailbox marauding began in late August, when tenants in Jay Miranda\u2019s building near the box noticed checks they sent through the mailbox had been fraudulently changed.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s say the check was for $100, it was changed to $1,000. They lost money,\u201d Miranda, the building\u2019s resident manager, said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not fair.\u00a0People work hard for their money. The amount of mail they have taken is insane.\u201d<\/p>\n
Videos from outside the building showed a consistent pattern: a lowlife riding up and blithely parking a scooter or a moped on the sidewalk during the early morning hours before brazenly reaching into the mailbox.<\/p>\n
Sometimes, the crooks would shine a flashlight as they sifted through the mailbox. One masked thief appears to be wearing delivery worker garb, down to a boxy backpack and reflective stripes.<\/p>\n
The thefts all follow a similar pattern. Obtained by the NY Post<\/p>\n
Another shows a moon-faced mope riding a scooter up to the mailbox, nervously fidgeting through it before taking \u2014 and oafishly dropping \u2014 some sort of parcel.<\/p>\n
The videos were all taken between roughly 1:20 a.m. and 2:15 a.m. on Nov. 24, Nov. 25, Dec. 2 and Dec. 8.<\/p>\n
Miranda said he sent videos to the local US Postal Service postmaster, but hadn\u2019t heard back.<\/p>\n
He said NYPD cops told him they can\u2019t do anything because the mailbox is \u201cgovernment property.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve reported it several times, but nothing has been done,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
But cops have been investigating several recent check frauds in the area, with at least one unfolding right after the first theft depicted on video.<\/p>\n
The mailbox marauders ride mopeds or scooters up to the box, rummage inside and ride off. Obtained by the NY Post<\/p>\n
The former tech staffer\u2019s $150 check was sent on Nov. 23, police said \u2014 roughly six hours before video shows the moon-faced klutz bumbling through the mailbox.<\/p>\n
He said the thief deposited the check digitally, altering the amount and the recipient\u2019s name. <\/p>\n
After discovering the fraud, the frustrated retiree went to the Chase bank right near the mailbox to sort it out. He said a bank employee already knew which mailbox was the culprit.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore I finished my sentence, she said you mean in that mailbox over there?\u201d and pointed across the street to the mailbox nearby, he said. <\/p>\n
The West Village old timer was not the only Chase client to suffer the same fate, he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cNobody was surprised,\u201d he said, noting he got fully refunded.<\/p>\n
Fed-up locals complained that it\u2019s been happening for years.<\/p>\n
Isha Matko, 55, a cashier at a nearby Gristedes supermarket, said she used to mail her rent checks from that very mailbox until a few years ago \u2013 when she discovered they were being stolen.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s still going on?\u201d she said angrily as she watched one of the recent videos. \u201cSomething needs to be done so they can\u2019t pull it out.\u201d<\/p>\n
The mailbox has been such a magnet for thieves that other locals, such as Todd Benedetto, 48, also said they avoid using it altogether.<\/p>\n
One moon-faced mope rode a scooter before bumbling through the mailbox. Obtained by the NY Post<\/p>\n
The klutzy thief dropped a parcel before scooting into the night. Obtained by the NY Post<\/p>\n
Benedetto said the mailbox \u2014 which is very close to his family\u2019s business, A Uno, a clothing and jewelry store \u2014 once felt mysteriously sticky.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said to myself, \u2018Maybe they are trying to not make the mail go down,\u2019 not knowing they were stealing from it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The thieves ended up snatching and cashing a $1,000 check Benedetto put in the mailbox about a year ago, he said. <\/p>\n
Getting a refund was such a hassle that Benedetto ended up eating the cost \u2014 and vowing never to use the mailbox again.<\/p>\n
\u201cI go the post office. It\u2019s a couple blocks away,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s nice to have that kind of thing there on the corner but it\u2019s not a nice thing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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One of Miranda\u2019s fellow resident managers said he tells people in his building to not use the mailbox.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know why that box is still there,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople in my building have complained about it, I think, since around COVID.\u201d<\/p>\n
Representatives with the US Postal Service\u2019s postal inspectors didn\u2019t return a request for comment.<\/p>\n
Matko said the culprits who stole her rent money from the mailbox need to finally be caught, especially during the holiday season.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s Christmas time, people are sending gift cards, money to a grandmother or whatever the case may be,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Additional reporting by Jennifer Bain and Kevin Sheehan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Somebody stamp out these mail thieves! Scooter-riding sleazeballs have been shamelessly stealing letters from a Greenwich Village mailbox…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79690,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[303,68,2519,8160,75,57,9,56,63,65,64,797,58,25995],"class_list":["post-79689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-crime","tag-exclusive","tag-greenwich-village","tag-mail","tag-manhattan","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-theft","tag-us-news","tag-us-postal-service"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}