A 26-year-old Clifton Heights man was sentenced to 78 months in federal prison for his role in a scheme that stole more than $121 million worth of U.S. Treasury checks by the time of his arrest, funneling them from Philadelphia postal workers onto encrypted online marketplaces. Alexander Telewoda must also pay $10.8 million in restitution and forfeit more than $162,000, on top of the three years of supervised release he received alongside his prison term.
According to NBC10 Philadelphia, Telewoda pleaded guilty in May 2026 to conspiracy to steal government funds, theft of government funds, and mail theft. The case traces back to the USPS Philadelphia Processing and Distribution Center at 7500 Lindbergh Boulevard, where postal clerks Saahir Irby and Tauheed Tucker allegedly targeted envelopes marked Return to Sender from the Treasury Department's Bureau of the Fiscal Service, concealing the mail in pockets and backpacks before carrying it to their personal vehicles, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Irby, a 28-year-old Philadelphia resident, and Tucker, 24, both worked as USPS processing clerks starting around June 2023 before the agency fired them in September 2024. Even after their termination, Telewoda found an alternate supplier of stolen checks and kept the operation running online until federal agents arrested him in June 2025, per the Justice Department.
A Digital Storefront for Stolen Government Money
The two postal clerks sold stolen checks to Cory Scott, a 26-year-old Ardmore resident, and to Telewoda, who then resold them online, per NBC10 Philadelphia. Scott ran encrypted Telegram channels — including one called SWIPESLAB, another called STIM LORD, and a third dubbed THE FRANCHISE — where he and Telewoda advertised stolen Social Security benefits, tax refunds, and veterans benefits checks nationwide, typically pricing them at around 10% of face value, the Inquirer reports.
Federal investigators caught a glimpse of just how brazen the operation could get during a covert surveillance operation in August 2024, when they watched Irby hand over 112 stolen Treasury check envelopes worth more than $248,000 to a buyer in the parking lot of Rivers Casino Philadelphia, according to 6ABC Philadelphia. Investigators say the scheme ultimately stole over $84 million worth of checks directly from the Philadelphia facility, though the total tied to Telewoda climbed past $121 million by the time of his arrest.
Millions Recovered, Millions More Cashed
Not all of the stolen money made it out the door. Authorities recovered another $3 million worth of stolen checks at Telewoda's home during the investigation. Even so, the scheme successfully negotiated approximately $11 million worth of stolen checks at financial institutions nationwide — a gap that illustrates how effectively the online resale network laundered government disbursements once checks left the mail stream.
Cracking the case took a 14-month, multi-agency federal investigation. Six federal agencies worked the case together: the USPS Office of Inspector General, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, and Social Security Administration Office of Inspector General, according to the Justice Department.
Co-Defendants Still Await Sentencing
Irby, Tucker, and Scott all pleaded guilty in May 2026 to the same charges as Telewoda — conspiracy to steal government funds, theft of government funds, and mail theft — but none has been sentenced yet. All three are scheduled to face Judge Wolson in October. Irby faces a maximum statutory sentence of up to 25 years in federal prison and a $1 million fine, while Tucker and Scott each face up to 20 years and a $750,000 fine, per the Justice Department. It remains an open question how their sentences will compare to the 78 months Telewoda received.
The case fits into a larger, worsening national pattern. A Financial Crimes Enforcement Network trend analysis found that U.S. financial institutions filed 15,417 Bank Secrecy Act reports detailing mail theft-related check fraud totaling over $688 million in suspicious transactions during just a six-month stretch in 2023. Treasury Department financial analysts have estimated that mail theft and check fraud accounted for roughly $21 billion in total losses nationwide that same year, driven partly by a 139% surge in mail theft reports from postal receptacles between 2019 and 2023, according to Forbes.
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service made 4,440 arrests nationwide in fiscal year 2024, resulting in more than 4,000 convictions primarily for mail theft, mail fraud, and illegal mailings, while intercepting more than $1 billion annually in fraudulent checks and money orders. Philadelphia-area prosecutors have brought multiple such cases in recent months: in January, federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania indicted two men in a separate check scheme involving Ibrahim Tougouma of Philadelphia and Tyler Glenn-Hayward of Pennsauken, New Jersey, accused of altering, counterfeiting, and depositing stolen Treasury checks through regional ATMs.
