OHIO — Police in Boardman are investigating multiple reports of mail theft and altered checks, a crime commonly known as “check washing.”
According to the Boardman Police Department, a woman reported on Dec. 31 that a check she placed in the mail for $40 was stolen, altered, and fraudulently cashed. Police said the check’s payee name was changed and the amount was increased to $4,350 before it was deposited using a mobile banking app. The victim reported the incident to her bank, which opened a fraud investigation.
Police said the case follows a similar report earlier this month in which another Boardman resident told officers that a $2,000 check mailed as payment was stolen, altered, and cashed through a mobile deposit. Investigators said both incidents are examples of check washing, a method in which criminals steal checks from the mail and chemically remove or alter the original writing…