Industrial Valve & Automation Co. is one of several Burr Ridge businesses that discovered the checks they were mailing were intercepted and altered.
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“Some were cashed, some were not,” said Tina Henderson, the Burr Ridge Police Department records coordinator.
Jim Breslin, the owner of Industrial Valve, said a postal carrier picked up mail at the company’s offices, on South Frontage Road, just southeast of Interstate 55 and Route 83, on Oct. 5 or 6. The outgoing mail included checks payable to the company’s vendors.
Some days later, Industrial Valve learned from one of the vendors their check had not arrived.
The company’s bank records showed the check for about $2,940 had cleared on Oct. 23, but Breslin learned the payee’s name had been changed to a name unknown to the company.
The Reaching Across Illinois Library System, which has offices at 125 Tower Drive in Burr Ridge, also was a victim of mail theft and check fraud. Officials of the library system, which provides e-books, continuing education, cooperative purchasing and other services to about 1,300 libraries statewide, reported Oct. 28 three checks totaling $80,928 that were mailed never arrived at their destination. Instead, someone took them and changed who the checks were payable to. It’s not clear whether the checks were cashed or not.
Law enforcement officials refer to the crime as check washing, when someone uses chemicals to remove the printing on a check and rewrite it for a different amount or make it payable to someone else.
Another business on Tower Drive in Burr Ridge reported Oct. 20 that two of its checks were “washed” and endorsed to unauthorized individuals. The checks were signed and fraudulently deposited into accounts, but the funds were not transferred before the fraud was discovered.
A business on Grant Street, like Industrial Valve, reported giving an envelope containing a business check to the mail carrier on Sept. 16 to mail, as they normally did. It was not until Oct. 21 that the business learned the check was not mailed to the intended recipient.
An employee of a Burr Ridge business on Shore Drive said he brought 50 checks to the U.S. Postal Service Office Annex, at 7410 Monroe St., in Willowbrook at about 5:15 p.m. Oct. 9 and put them in an outside mailbox there. On Oct. 22, he noticed the company was short about $15,000 and contacted the Burr Ridge Police Department.
More than five businesses in Willowbrook also reported checks they mailed were intercepted, Willowbrook police officials said.
Local police departments have referred the companies to the U.S. Postal Service Inspector General, who is conducting an investigation.
Breslin said he has learned about 25 of Industrial Valve’s checks payable to vendors never arrived. He has placed stop payment orders on the outstanding checks.
“They were high security checks,” Breslin said. “I guess they were not high security enough.”
For the near future, at least, he plans to make payments via wire transfer instead of paper checks, he said.