CHARLOTTE — Four people are accused of redeeming more than three-quarters of a million dollars from stolen money orders that were taken from a U.S. Postal Service location in Charlotte, according to court documents obtained by Channel 9 Wednesday.
Court documents say a grand jury indicted four people for federal charges in connection with the scheme. The defendants were identified as Ravenna Lee Dorsey, Jr., Jaren Jamar Hopkins-Benton, Gregory Jeremy Singleton, and Shawn Joanta Brooks.
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According to the indictment, two shipments of 2,500 blank USPS money orders were sent to the Downtown Station Post Office in Charlotte in mid-November of 2020, but only one of the shipments was scanned and accepted into inventory. The other shipment was allegedly passed to the identified suspects “and others known and unknown to the grand jury.”
Federal investigators say the suspects would routinely purchase legitimate money orders, and then copy the information from those money orders onto the blank ones, creating fraudulent money orders. Court documents show that investigators tracked at least four instances of this happening, including on Dec. 29, 2020, Jan. 13, 2021, Jan. 21, 2021, and Jan. 25, 2021.
The indictment says several fraudulent money orders were deposited into bank accounts before the money was withdrawn for personal use.
In total, federal authorities say about 800 of the 2,500 stolen money orders were redeemed. The losses totaled about $751,329.
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Charges have been filed against the suspects for conspiracy to defraud the United States, and possession of stolen and fraudulently altered USPS money orders.
Arrest warrants have been issued for all of the listed suspects, but they weren’t taken into custody as of Wednesday afternoon.
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