2 Men Steal Social Security Checks, Letters From Postal Vehicle

Two men, one wielding a tire iron, smashed the rear window of a Postal Service mail delivery car and grabbed hundreds of letters on a quiet residential street in Costa Mesa on Thursday in what authorities said was the first such robbery in Orange County in recent memory.

Social Security checks were being delivered Thursday in the neighborhood, where many elderly people live. Postal inspector Steve Schneringer said these checks were the target of the daring “smash and grab” robbery in the 3100 block of Lincoln Way about 11 a.m.

Schneringer said he believed that the two robbery suspects are members of a “loosely knit gang of illegal aliens from Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras” who have been rifling postal vehicles in Los Angeles County during the last year.

But this is the first time that the gang’s activity has reached into Orange County, Schneringer said.

“We’ve been concentrating on Los Angeles, where we had two of these robberies (Thursday),” he said. “Because (Thursday was) Social Security check day, we had 35 postal inspectors out on the roads keeping a lookout.”

Schneringer added, “Now I guess we’ll have to start sending inspectors down to Orange County on these government check days.”

Details of the robbery were incomplete late Thursday. But according to the account pieced together from interviews with postal authorities, Costa Mesa police and eyewitness Allan E. Lund, a Postal Service carrier at the wheel of a Ford Pinto hatchback was delivering mail in a north Costa Mesa neighborhood near the juncture of the Corona del Mar and San Diego freeways about 11 a.m.

The postman, whose identity was not immediately available, parked his car on Cheyenne Street near the intersection with Lincoln Way, Lund said. Lund said he was standing in the driveway of his house, which is on the corner of the two streets.

The postman headed south on Madison Avenue and was soon out of view as he walked along his regular delivery route, Lund said.

Suddenly, a reddish Toyota Celica pulled to a screeching halt alongside the vacant postal car, Lund said. Two men, whom postal inspector Schneringer described as Latinos in their early 30s, dashed from their car, one wielding a tire iron.

Lund said the man with the tire iron smashed the rear window of the hatchback. Both men grabbed all the mail from two mail trays, which Schneringer estimated contained 300 pieces of first-class mail. Postal authorities eventually will determine how many residents lost mail.

The men threw the mail in the trunk of their car and sped off toward the Corona del Mar Freeway, Lund said.

“It didn’t take them more than 60 seconds,” said Lund, a 73-year-old retired industrial engineer. Lund said he immediately called police, and officers arrived before the mail carrier returned.

Lund said the carrier told him he believed that the suspects were the same two men who had stopped him earlier and asked for directions.

Schneringer said the robbery was “amazing because it occurred in broad daylight in Orange County. We’ve been averaging about five of these thefts a month in Los Angeles around the first and 15th of the month, when Social Security and welfare checks come out.

“But we have no record of this happening in Orange County in recent years,” he said.

Schneringer said Thursday’s robbery was particulary troubling because postal inspectors had hoped that their arrest in Los Angeles late Wednesday of 16 men, believed to be mail-theft gang members, would put a dent in the ring’s activities. The men were charged with providing false identity documents to cash stolen checks.

Schneringer said the arrests were made by members of the Postal Service’s 12-man task force, which is attempting to curb thefts from delivery vehicles. The task force represents about 10% of the 123 postal inspectors who work in Los Angeles and Orange counties, he said.

People who had mail stolen will be receiving letters informing them of the theft, said Joe Breckenridge, spokesman for the Postal Service in Orange County.

Social Security recipients will be receiving letters telling them to immediately contact their local Social Security office to get new checks, Breckenridge said. Postal officials in the past have said it can take months to get replacement checks.

Schneringer said the small neighborhood groceries where gang members use forged identity cards to cash stolen checks find that these checks are not honored by banks because government agencies have placed hold orders on them.