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State Police warn of mail theft scam

QUEENSBURY — State Police warned this week of a scam that has cost local banks tens of thousands of dollars and caused numerous local business owners significant angst.

Investigators have determined that two men from Georgia who were arrested late last month on felony charges related to the cashing of forged checks are part of a nationwide ring of thieves who have a novel way of getting bank information and using it to steal money.

State Police believe Alphonso L. Howard Jr., 27, and Javonte J. Johnson, 21, both of Decatur, Georgia, came to the region at some point last month with computer equipment and plans to involve local residents in a scheme that has attracted attention from the FBI as well as police around the country.

Authorities said the two victimized at least three businesses in Queensbury and others in Saratoga County by going through their mailboxes at night, looking for checks that had been put in the mail to be picked up the next day.

When they found checks, they took the account and routing numbers from them to produce new, fake checks with legitimate bank information, using computer equipment and a printer they had with them at a Queensbury motel they used as a base of operations.

Police said they then went to stores in the region, such as Cumberland Farms and Walmart, to recruit local residents to take the checks to banks, going as far as to make fake identification for them. They enticed accomplices by offering a cut of the money that they received, and the two Georgia men found a number of people willing to assist them.

Authorities said they got a break in the case last month when one of the men who cashed a check went to Glens Falls Police, believing that he had been involved in a crime. That led to the investigation that resulted in the arrest of Howard and Johnson on felony counts of grand larceny, attempted grand larceny and criminal possession of a forged instrument in Queensbury, police said.

Computer equipment and nearly $20,000 in cash was seized from their hotel room.

Johnson was then arrested on similar charges in Wilton last week, as he prepared to post bail to be released from Warren County Jail, records show. Charges are expected elsewhere in Saratoga and Washington counties, police said.

Police said business owners and residents should not leave mail with checks enclosed in mailboxes to be picked up by a letter carrier, but instead should drop it in a secure mailbox.

State Police investigators Warren Law and Jon Deyette are heading the inquiry at the Queensbury station.

Anyone with information in the case was asked to call State Police at 518-745-1035.

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