A Newark man admitted today scheming with at least one U.S. Postal Service (USPS) employee and others to steal credit cards from the mail and use the stolen cards for hundreds of thousands of dollars of retail and online purchases, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Vikas Khanna announced.
Federal officials said Hakir Brown, 27, Newark, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Kevin McNulty in Newark federal court to an information charging him with conspiracy to commit bank fraud.
According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:
Hakir Brown, Jahad Salter, 25, and Dashaun Brown, 31, engaged USPS employees, including Khadijah Banks Oneal, 31, to steal credit cards from the mail in exchange for qcompensation.
Once they obtained the stolen cards, Hakir Brown and his conspirators fraudulently posed as the accountholders of the stolen credit cards when calling the banks that issued the cards and used personal identifying information belonging to the accountholders to obtain or change information about the stolen credit cards.
They then used the stolen credit cards to make purchases at retail stores in New Jersey and elsewhere, including New York and online, resulting in attempted losses of over $300,000.
Several of the USPS employees and individuals who participated in the scheme have been charged by complaint for their roles in the scheme, including, Banks Oneal, who worked at a mail processing plant facility in Kearny, New Jersey; another USPS employee, Ashley Taylor, who worked at a post office in New York; Salter; Adeeb Salih, 29, of East Orange, and Yaseen Salih, 24, of Iselin, New Jersey.
Dashaun Brown was indicted by a grand jury on Feb. 9, 2022, and his arraignment is scheduled for March 3, 2022, before Judge McNulty.
The charges and allegations against these other individuals are merely accusations, and they are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
The charge of conspiracy to commit bank fraud carries a statutory maximum sentence of 30 years in prison and a maximum fine of $1 million.
Sentencing is scheduled for July 7, 2022.