The swiping of checks from peoples’ mailboxes and the alteration of the checks to steal money is a “huge” problem which warrants people changing their habits, according to a Mineola police captain.

Captain Joyce Box said that police have surveillance video and are trying to identify three men who attempted to pass forged checks at Mineola Community Bank on Dec. 15 at about 11:16 a.m. It was reported that the men tried to cash three “washed” (altered) checks that were taken from someone’s mailbox that had been written out to pay bills. It was one of three reports for the week involving this type of crime.

Box said that the thieves are believed to watch neighborhoods, residents’ habits and for flags raised signaling outgoing mail in mailboxes. They then take the mail with checks made out to pay bills and use a chemical on them to remove part of what is written on them, leaving only the signature. The amounts are changed, usually for much larger amounts, than what they were originally written for. “Pay to” information is also altered.

The Mineola police captain said the department receives two to three reports of this a week. The problem doesn’t just involve rural mailboxes, but the blue mailboxes and even those at post offices where thieves somehow fish out envelopes with checks that end up altered. She said the location of the reports range, and the mail may not have necessarily been stolen in Mineola, but the altered checks were believed to have been passed here.

This past week Mineola PD had one such incident reported by the Gregg County Sheriff’s Office on Dec. 20 in which the check was originally believed to have been used at Walmart here. Upon investigation, it was found it was passed in Quinlan. The victim had put the bill payment in their mailbox. Another report came in on Dec. 16 from Upshur County. Again, the bill payment was placed in a mailbox.

“It’s a big enough problem people are going to have to change what they’ve been doing for years,” Box said. She hopes that neighbors who are home will help keep watch over mailboxes in their neighborhoods. But Box recommends that people take mail with checks in it to the post office and if it has to be put it in an outside box, she recommends trying to do so at a time close to when it will be collected.

Some of the cases have been turned over to United States Postal Service inspectors, Box said, for investigation of what is a federal crime.