Check laundering scam costs Boca Raton business owner $20,000.

Boca Raton, Fla. – A mail fraud case involving check laundering cost a Boca Raton business owner $20,000 late last year. Now he has a warning for others.

“I’ve owned this for the last 14 years,” said Andre Welicki, owner of 4-95 Boca Car Wash in Boca Raton. If I won the lottery I would still be working here.

So when $20,000 was lost from his account at the end of last year, he said the damage was devastating.

“October, November and December, they continued to cash these fraudulent checks,” Wellicki said. “I was surprised that the bank never got hold of it. It was the same check number but made out under a different name.”

Wolicki told WPTV that he believes the account information can be stolen through checks or documents sent in the mail.

Alex Hagan / WPTV

“Eventually, I had to close my checking account because they kept depositing fraudulent checks,” he said.

WPTV reported an increase in check fraud in Boca Raton last April when checks were stolen from a U.S. Postal Service drop box off Palmetto Park Road in Boca Raton. As in the case of Waliki, they are washed.

“I was shocked when I opened the bank statement and $9,300 was missing.” John Haberlein He told WPTV in April..

“I always thought putting them in the blue box was safer than someone taking them out of the mailbox,” said Jeff Brader, another victim.

According to the Boca Raton Police Department, officers received 39 reported cases of mailbox theft in 2022 and 27 of them recovered stolen checks.

Alex Hagan / WPTV

“I’ve definitely lost a lot of sleep over it,” Wellicki said. “I didn’t know if I was going to be completely free the next day, if my employees were going to be paid or if my bills were going to be paid, I was in danger of going out of business.”

The safest way to mail a USPS check or any document containing personal information is to go in person at the post office, which Wolicki said he will do from now on.

WPTV heard about other recent check laundering incidents in Riviera Beach and Boynton Beach where checks were stolen from mailboxes.