There’s a new mailbox in town that appears to be reducing the crime known as “mail fishing.”
For more than two years, we’ve been reporting on thieves who drop sticky objects attached to string into U.S. Postal Service mailboxes, pulling up envelopes that adhere to the glue. Many of those envelopes contain checks, which the culprits then alter and cash. As recently as July, 2018, five checks were apparently fished out of a mailbox right in front of the Planetarium post office on 83rd Street, yielding a haul worth $53,000.
Now, it appears the mail fishing season on the Upper West Side is over — perhaps permanently. Beginning last May, every mailbox in the 20th precinct (59th – 86th Streets), and most in the 24th precinct (86th – 110th Streets), was replaced with a new “high-security collection box.”