A 39-year-old Spring Valley haredi man was recently arrested on charges
that he stole more than $118,000 from the U.S. Postal Service by using
duplicate shipping labels.
Haredi Man Arrested For Alleged Postal Fraud
Shmarya Rosenberg • Failedmessiah.com
Yehuda Shechter, 39-year-old Spring Valley haredi man, was recently arrested on charges that he stole more than $118,000 from the U.S. Postal Service by using duplicate shipping labels, the Journal News reported.
Shechter was arrested on May 21. He was subsequently released on a $75,000 bond.
The fraud was allegedly carried out on behalf of Schechter’s BvHcell.com. Schechter aallegedly exploited a loophole in the Postal Service’s system that allowed him to print duplicate shipping labels and thereby avoid paying postage.
Schechter opened a postage account with Endicia.com in December 2008. He did not produce his first duplicate label until August 2009.
Over the next three years Schechter allegedly produced almost 10,000 duplicate labels, costing the Postal Service $38,907.
In April 2012, Schechter closed his account with Endicia.com.
In May 2012 he opened an account with Stamps.com, and allegedly created about 25,000 duplicate shipping labels, costing the Postal Service around $80,000.
But by April 2012, Postal Inspectors were monitoring Schechter.
Later, they set up a sting. An undercover postal inspector bought two cell phone chargers from Schechter’s BvHcell.com. The shipping labels on each had unique codes that had been used previously.
If convicted, Schechter could be sentenced to as much as five years in prison.