The Crime Ring That Left Clues on Social Media

Mailin’ It! - The Official USPS Podcast

This true-crime episode of Mailin' It explores a sophisticated identity theft and check fraud ring uncovered after a Hampton, Virginia, shooting led

Key takeaways

• Social media activity can be a critical vulnerability in criminal operations, even when users believe they are anonymous.

Main topics

• Identity theft
• Check fraud

Notable quotes

The internet is supposedly anonymous, but Warren made a massive mistake that seems almost hard to believe.

Conclusion

This case highlights how seemingly isolated crimes like a home invasio

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:07) Hello, and welcome to Mail In It, the official podcast of the United States Postal Service. I'm Carla Kirby. And Speaker 2 (0:15) I'm Jeff Marino. Carla, you know, when we think of identity theft and mail fraud, we usually picture quiet, white-collar crimes carried out behind computer screens. But today's case shows just how quickly the underworld of mail theft can collide with other crimes to create much bigger problems. Today we're diving into another true crime case with the Postal Inspection Service. This one centered in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. It's a story of stolen postal keys, check washing, and a $2.1 million bank fraud ring led by a 25-year-old who went by the online alias Sauce God. He used his stolen proceeds to buy jewelry, take luxury vacations in Turks and Caicos, and buy a brand new luxury car. all while bragging about it on social media. Speaker 3 (1:04) So Jeff, for a minute, I thought you were going to call him a criminal mastermind. But given how things ended for him, not sure he really qualifies as that. And to help us piece together this incredible investigation, we're joined by U.S. Postal Inspector, Stefan Hines, who led the team that brought this ring to justice. Inspector Hines, welcome to Mailin' It. Speaker 1 (1:28) Hey, thank you guys. I appreciate you having me on the show. Speaker 2 (1:32) Inspector Hines, let's start with the events that put the Postal Inspection Service onto this case. So back in early 2021, local police had responded to a shooting at a Hampton, Virginia apartment complex. How did a homicide investigation unexpectedly open the door for the Postal Inspection Service to uncover this identity theft ring? Speaker 1 (1:53) So it started when two local fraudsters, Javon Turner, and Josiah Turner were living in an apartment in Hampton, Virginia. An armed gang lieutenant of a criminal street gang attempted a home invasion, but Jovan Turner drew his gun and shot the intruder in the head before the intruder had a chance. The intruder fell directly inside of the doorway, and because of that threshold, local police was able to secure a state search warrant for the residents. Speaker 2 (2:27) Interesting. So if I got that right, a gang member shows up to shoot Javon Turner, and instead Javon shoots the person who came into his apartment. So now that a crime's been committed at this apartment, police can now start to investigate? Is that right? Speaker 1 (2:43) Yeah, so based on the investigation, police are allowed, because the apartment is involved, police are allowed to obtain a search warrant because a crime was committed there. So what did they find? So inside the residence, instead of narcotics, it was an identity theft trap house. And what that is, is essentially it's a stash house for fraud. And so inside the residence, investigators found $28,000 in cash, in a shoebox, four high-end printers, a credit card reader, a money counter, and about 20 iPhones. So that's certainly Speaker 2 (3:22) suspicious. Did they come up with any conclusions as to what was actually going on there? Speaker 1 (3:27) Yeah, so based on what the investigators saw, they knew that it was essentially a trap house for card cracking or check fraud. Speaker 2 (3:37) Can you explain what that means in layman's terms? Speaker 1 (3:41) Yeah, so card cracking and check fraud is where individuals will... use social media to recruit third-party account holders. And so those individuals are collusive and they will recruit for bank accounts so that they can deposit checks into those accounts and withdraw money before the bank is aware of the situation. Speaker 3 (4:03) So what kind of paper trail was found that pointed to the inspection service to get involved? Speaker 1 (4:12) So there were several counterfeit checks on the counter. Obviously, with a culmination of the printers and checks, we were able to locate, again, several counterfeit checks that were deposited into Navy Federal Credit Union accounts. Speaker 3 (4:30) And so then how did that lead to the Postal Inspection Service? So from the local police, how were... How was your team connected? So Speaker 1 (4:43) because there's checks involved, it's assumed that some of the original checks were mailed using the United States Postal Service and intercepted. Speaker 2 (4:56) Now, I understand there was a task force already set up that kind of had you guys involved in this from the beginning. Can you talk about that? Speaker 1 (5:03) Yeah. So the United States Postal Inspection Service has numerous deputized task force officers. And specifically in this case, we had a Hampton police detective who was assigned to the Economic Crimes Unit, but also deputized as a United States Postal Inspection Service task force officer. Speaker 3 (5:24) So the inspection service was basically on this case from the start. You'd mentioned that a fraudulent check found in the Turner's apartment had been deposited into the Navy Federal Credit Union. How were you able to determine that from the information found? Speaker 1 (5:41) So based on the reverse side of a check, it usually tells you... where the check was deposited. And so, you know, we deal with financial institutions working mail theft investigations on a daily basis. And so I reached out to one of my Navy Federal Credit Union contacts and was able to obtain surveillance from that check deposit. Speaker 2 (6:06) And what did you learn from that surveillance? Speaker 1 (6:09) So what we were able to