A Naperville man who recruited U.S. Postal Service employees to steal credit cards from the mail that he used to make fraudulent purchases was sentenced this week to nine years in federal prison.
Davey Hines, 30, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court last year to being one of the ringleaders in a conspiracy dubbed “Operation Cash on Delivery,” a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Northern District Office in Chicago said.
Postal service employees would steal credit cards and other financial items to give to Hines and others in exchange for cash or items of value, the release said.
“Hines, who also recruited most of the USPS employees, then worked with his co-defendants to unlawfully obtain the USPS customers’ personal identifying information, including dates of birth and Social Security numbers, and fraudulently activate the stolen cards,” the release said.
Over the course of 19 months, Hines and the people with whom he was working stole more than 657 credit cards and made more than $462,719 in fraudulent purchases.
Initially charged with 10 counts of theft and fraud in February 2021, Hines eventually pleaded guilty in July 2022 to four counts of conspiracy, receipt of stolen mail, access device fraud and aggravated.
In addition to 108 months in prison, U.S. District Court Judge Edmond E. Chang sentenced Hines Monday to 3 years of supervised release and to pay restitution to the financial institutions that issued the stolen credit cards.
Hines committed the offenses while on court-supervised release following a prior federal conviction for bank fraud in 2015, the release said.
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