Federal authorities arrested three Florida men in connection with the spate of identity thefts and credit card fraud that has plagued Harvard and other area towns since last August, according to an announcement last week by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston.
Lucson Appolon and Kevens Louis, both 26, were arrested April 16 and have each been charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years’ imprisonment. A third man, whose name has not yet been released, was arrested April 27. A fourth person has also been charged but remains at large. All four suspects are from Florida. Officers from the Dangerous Mail Investigations section of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service made the arrests.
Harvard Police Detective Daniele Fortunato, who has worked on the case for months, emphasized that this crime is completely separate from the mail thefts that former mail carrier Stephanie Lacroix pleaded guilty to in early March. These later cases of identity theft and credit card fraud, she said in a recent interview, were the work of a “large, very organized group.” That group, she said, has been responsible for most of the identity thefts in town, but she is still working on several other cases to determine whether they are connected or not.
All told, about 50 Harvard families fell victim to the identity thefts. Often two or more people in a household had their identities stolen, Fortunato said. The thefts took place most often on West Bare Hill, East Bare Hill, Woodside, and Partridge Hill roads; but residents on Still River, Littleton, Slough, and other roads around town were also hit.
The scam allegedly carried out by the Florida men extended well beyond Harvard, covering towns in at least three New England states. “We were just one of the ‘lucky’ towns picked for our location off of 495,” Fortunato explained in an email.
In February Harvard police got a break in the case when a neighbor alerted them to some stolen mail that had been discarded along a roadside. Investigators found a fingerprint on that mail that allowed them to identify one suspect and get a warrant for his arrest.
A federal criminal complaint that was partially unsealed April 24 explained how the fraud worked. The scammers found Harvard residents’ personal information, including Social Security numbers and birthdates, on the “dark web,” an encrypted area of the internet that is not accessible to most search engines and is often used for illegal activity. The scammers used the information they found there to apply for credit cards in the residents’ names, giving the victims’ real addresses.
Using phony email addresses, the scammers also set up accounts with Informed Delivery, the free postal service that tells people by email what letters or packages will arrive each day. With those accounts they could monitor the mail being delivered to their victims’ homes.
The scammers then waited for the illicit credit cards to reach the residents’ mailboxes. According to the U.S. Attorney’s announcement, “The defendants subsequently intercepted the credit cards at the victims’ mailboxes before the victims could receive them and used those credit cards at ATMs and to purchase gift cards and other items for resale at Apple and Walmart, among other retail establishments.” Federal authorities estimated the thefts totaled more than $1.2 million.
Rural roads, long driveways, and mailboxes out of sight from the house made the scammers’ lives easier. So did houses that might be empty all day, with mailboxes that were checked only after the occupants came home from work. And proximity to major highways allowed the scammers to work fast and leave the area quickly.
Federal officials credited the Harvard Police Department for providing valuable assistance in the case, along with police in Concord, Sherborn, Weston, and departments in Maine and Florida. The Boston offices of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Homeland Security were also involved, with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service taking the lead.
