9/23/24 – The U.S. Postal Service says a former letter carrier assigned to its Lakewood post office is accused of violating the public trust.

According to a federal indictment, former USPS employee Gregory D. Drake was allegedly stealing mail containing checks for large amounts of money and selling the checks to a group of co-conspirators he had recruited.

The indictment contends that the recruited suspects, identified as Darrell P. Smith, Jovaun P. Woodfolk, Deandre L. Couts and Dachi I. Wheat, would forge or alter signatures, cash the checks or counterfeit versions of them and then kick back a cut of the illegal proceeds to Drake through cash apps.

A leading authority on security and fraud says Drake’s scheme depended on the recruits to do the dirty work.

“He’s thinking, ‘hey, all I’ve got to do is hand the checks off to somebody, they get their piece of the action and how is it ever going to come back to me?’ because he’s not physically handling the checks. He’s not processing the checks. All he’s doing is unloading the envelopes with the checks to the criminals and they’re at a long distance and it’s very lucrative for them to do that on an ongoing basis,” Tim Dimoff said.

Dimoff, who also has more 20 years of experience in law enforcement, says a longtime postal employee like the 34-year-old Drake, who was hired in 2015, would have a keen eye for any mail containing checks. Read more here.