Postal worker in Alabama made thousands selling stolen checks to criminals, feds say
A former postal worker was convicted of stealing checks in Alabama and selling them to criminals, federal officials said.
Michael Rowser, 24, was convicted of supplying stolen checks to administrators of a scam Telegram channel that operated as a criminal marketplace, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Alabama said in a Jan. 8 news release.
After three days of testimony, a jury returned a guilty verdict, convicting Rowser of conspiracy to receive bribes and conspiracy to commit wire and bank fraud, the release said.
McClatchy News reached out to Rowser’s attorney Jan. 13 but did not receive an immediate response.
According to the indictment, Rowser worked as a mail sorter from July 2021 to October 2023 in Birmingham and agreed to steal mail for admins of “The Lucky Shop,” a channel dedicated to selling stolen and fraudulent checks.
Admins would get “stolen checks from corrupt postal employees” and post redacted images of the checks to the channel for sale, with a portion of their profits going back to Rowser, prosecutors said.
Between September 2022 and August 2023, Rowser received more than $106,000 in bribe payments, according to the indictment.
He is scheduled to be sentenced April 7, officials said.
Mail theft
During the early COVID-19 pandemic, there was a sharp increase in mail theft complaints, according to a September 2023 report issued by the U.S. Postal Service’s Office of Inspector General.
From March 2020 through February 2021, there were 299,020 mail theft complaints – a 161% increase “compared to the same period in the previous year,” the report said.
Suspected mail theft can be reported to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service online or by calling 1-877-876-2455.
This story was originally published January 13, 2025 at 4:58 PM with the headline "Postal worker in Alabama made thousands selling stolen checks to criminals, feds say."
