"Mailbox Raider" Sentenced to 54 Months

Asheville -- February 13, 2023: Phyllis Ann Garcia, 31, of Hudson, N.C., was sentenced yesterday to 54 months
in prison for bank fraud and related charges.

Dena J. King, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina made the announcement. Garcia was also
told to pay $18,418.16 in restitution and serve three years of supervised release after she gets out of prison.

Michael C. Scherck, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Charlotte Division,
Tommy D. Coke, Inspector in Charge of the Atlanta Division of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), which oversees Charlotte, Sheriff Donald G. Brown II of the Catawba County Sheriff’s Office, Sheriff Alan C. Jones, of the Caldwell County Sheriff’s Office, and Chief Reed Baer of the Hickory Police Department join U.S. Attorney King in making the announcement.

According to court documents and court hearings, between 2020 and 2021, Garcia and her accomplices stole checks,
money orders, credit cards, and other financial and personal identifying information (PII) from victims in Caldwell and Catawba Counties and used it to scam banks and other financial institutions. Garcia stole the personal information, debit cards, credit cards, checks, and money orders of her victims from the homes of people she knew or from their mailboxes. She and her accomplices called this "mailboxing." Garcia and her co-conspirators forged the victims’ signatures or altered
the names on the stolen checks and money orders, cashed them, and split the proceeds. Court records show that Garcia and his accomplices also used victims' debit and credit cards to buy things or stole their personal information to get credit cards in their names. Court records show that at least 247 people were hurt by Garcia's plan to steal mail. Law enforcement also found that Garcia and her accomplices stole at least 495 pieces of mail from homes and businesses.

On August 31, 2022, Garcia pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud, access device fraud, and bank fraud. She is being held by the federal government, and once a federal facility is chosen, she will be moved to the care of the federal Bureau of Prisons.

U.S. Attorney King thanked the FBI, USPIS, the Catawba County Sheriff's Office, the Caldwell County Sheriff's Office, and the Hickory Police Department for their work on the case.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Asheville prosecuted the case.

WNCTIMES by Marjorie Farrington