There was a time when U.S. postal stamps were often used as currency, especially for mail order payments. With inflation and the dependence on credit cards, the practice has gone away, but a “Forever Stamp” has recently experienced an increase to $.58 for a one-ounce, first-class mailing. My point is that postage stamps are still as good as cash and Fanice Reed (a.k.a. Fanice Jones) of Humble, Texas, knew that.
Theft of Government Property
According to CBS4 Denver (January 8, 2022), Fanice Reed, a career criminal, walked into area post offices allegedly representing a law firm and also a charitable organization:
“Reed sometimes told postal employees that her law firm needed the postage for a big mailing. Other times, she claimed to be buying the postage on behalf of a non-profit organization so that care packages could be sent to U.S. military troops.”
The non-profit, called “Hope For Our Heroes,” did not exist.
Between February 2019 and March 2020, she entered Colorado and Texas post offices and using fake IDs, fake checks, and wrote several counterfeit checks on those accounts. She claimed they were the bank accounts of law firms and nonprofits supporting the military. The bank accounts didn’t exist. She obviously realized that the checks would bounce, piling one fraud on top of another. Nevertheless, she must have believed that since the ID was fake and the six checks were fake, no one would be able to trace her. The thefts were such brazen thefts that on some days, she allegedly entered one post office twice and spoke to a supervisor saying that she would be ordering large quantities of stamps in the future.
Reed was able to steal about $259,000 in stamps before wary postal inspectors closed down her criminal activities. The postal service was able to recover a large portion of the stamps. However, upon arrest, Reed was ordered to pay the government about $73,000 in restitution. Reed is looking at 27 months in federal prison for theft of government property. In addition, she is required to serve three years of supervised release.
What Motivates Fanice Reed and the USPS?
The crimes of Fanice Reed are crimes of opportunity. The “crimes,” if you will, of the US Postal Service are flaws in the behemoth organization that indeed have been ingrained in the system for many decades. In short, the USPS allows criminals to navigate a system that has ancient oversite.
There is no ethical justification for stealing almost $259,000 worth of stamps. However, I am stunned that a criminal can walk into post offices in two states with fake checks, fake ID’s and fake organizations and the checks are then accepted without question.
Is the USPS incapable of any 21st Century security? Does this fraud tell us more about a single criminal or a clueless, multi-billion-dollar quasi-governmental agency? It begs the question, of course, as to how much additional fraud occurs on an almost yearly basis?
There are systems in place, certainly data-bases, that could have immediately determined that the checks were fake, the IDs were fake and that “Fanice Jones” was fake. The law enforcement arm of the organization should have been immediately notified. Possibly notified before she left the building.
The USPS we are told, always runs at a loss but I wonder how much of that loss is the result of an organization that persists in using 1950s technology to catch 2022 criminals? Fanice Reed deserves jail. The USPS owes us yet another explanation as to why it encourages that fraud to take place?
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