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Sometime before or during 2001, an employee at Baltimore-Washington International Airport began stealing mail that passed through the airport. His thefts included checks, credit cards, and other financial documents. He forwarded the stolen the mail to people in New York City who used the stolen documents to obtain cash advances and establish phony credit cards and checking accounts. Postal inspectors noticed that a Southwest Airlines employee, Kehinde Akintola Oladapo, was regularly sending Express Mail packages with fake return addresses to Brooklyn, New York. They intercepted one of the packages, which contained stolen credit cards. Inspectors searched the employee’s residence and the Brooklyn address to which the mail had been sent. The search yielded over 150 stolen credit cards and 450 stolen checks.
By 2005, four people charged in the crimes were brought to trial. Oladapo pled guilty to charges of theft or receipt of stolen mail and conspiracy to commit bank fraud. He received a sentence of 14 years in prison to be followed by 5 years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $7 million in restitution. His wife was convicted of possession of stolen mail and aiding and abetting mail theft and sentenced to five years in prison. Two of the New York crew also pled guilty and were sentenced to four and nine years in prison. The believed mastermind of the scheme, Babatope Oluwaseun, was also charged, but fled the country before he could be arrested. |
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