CHICAGO — A West Town resident is warning neighbors after they caught a mail thief on camera in their building lobby this week. The theft, which occurred near the intersection of Grand and Hermitage, is the last in a seemingly endless number of similar cases that have been reported in recent years.
In a Ring Network post, the resident said they saw the theft in progress on their security app around 9:28 a.m. Thursday.
“I chased him into the street where he jumped into the described vehicle and they drove off,” the poster said, adding that the thief got into a red Kia Sedona with an Illinois plate beginning with AZ82.
Surveillance video, shared below, shows the thief used a key to open the building’s mail panel. He perused the contents of each box, looking for anything that might contain valuables or useful personal information, and then walked out.
Fortunately, he looked directly into the Ring camera as he exited, giving the lens a nice close-up of his face.
Mail thieves are front-line foot soldiers in much larger, organized criminal operations that profit by exploiting the contents of envelopes through identity theft and check cashing schemes.
The operations are also the reason so many mail carriers have been robbed in Chicago in recent years. U.S. Postal Service master keys carried by postal workers, known as “arrow keys,” can open most apartment and condo building entrances and mailbox panels in Chicago.
You can contact CWBChicago and provide anonymous tips by email: [email protected]
