The U.S. Department of Justice announced last week that a United States Postal Service employee and two others have been charged in a scheme that involved more than $24 million worth of stolen checks.
The DOJ shared on Friday that Nakedra Shannon, 29, the postal worker, and Donnel Gardner, 27, and Desiray Carter, 24, all of Charlotte, North Carolina, were charged with one count of conspiracy to commit financial institution fraud and five counts of theft of government property.
The DOJ is alleging that Shannon conspired with Gardner and Carter to steal incoming and outgoing checks in the mail. They then allegedly sold the stolen checks to other individuals.
Gardner would allegedly sell the checks through a channel run by Carter on the cloud-based platform Telegram, according to the indictment. The money was then split between the three.
In the release, the DOJ said Carter and Gardner have also been charged with seven counts of possession of stolen mail matter, and Shannon has been charged with eight counts of theft of mail by a postal employee.
“According to allegations in the indictment, from March 2021 to July 2023, Shannon was employed by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) as a mail processing clerk at a USPS processing and distribution center in Charlotte,” the release said.
According to the release, the trio stole more than $24 million in checks, including $12 million in stolen checks that had been posted for sale online and $8 million from the United States Treasury.
The scheme is believed to have resulted in thousands of dollars in criminal proceeds for the three.