Court papers: Man redirected UPS’ mail
Man reportedly received company checks, credit cards.
There are apparently some people who want more mail.
In a massive scam against one of the world’s largest shipping companies, one of those people got just that.
Dushaun Henderson-Spruce, 24, has been criminally charged with orchestrating a scheme that sent mail intended for the United Parcel Service’s corporate headquarters in Atlanta to his one-bedroom apartment in Chicago. Alleging that Henderson-Spruce filed a change-of-address form to the U.S. Postal Service, court documents show Henderson-Spruce received hoards of mail — including checks, corporate credit cards and other sensitive documents — and got away with it for three months.
Only after Henderson-Spruce allegedly deposited nearly $60,000 in UPS checks into his personal bank account did the company learn of the scam, according to court documents. The story was first reported by The Chicago Tribune.
The affidavit states that in mid-January, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service was alerted to an individual who, three months before, had submitted a form to change a company’s corporate Atlanta address to an apartment unit in Chicago.
The documents do not name UPS. But in a statement, a company spokesman said UPS was notified that some U.S. mail that was intended for UPS employees was “redirected by an unauthorized change of address by a third party.”
“The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) corrected the issue and the USPS Postal Inspector is investigating the incident,” the spokesman said. “We’ll defer to the responding authorities for further comment.”
Law enforcement reviewed the change-of-address form and found that the person who submitted it had initially made an error, then crossed out the error and initialed it “HS.” Those same initials were also originally used to sign the form. But the person had scratched them out and replaced them with the company name.
The company then contacted Postal Service inspectors and reported that roughly 150 American Express Corporate Credit Cards had been issued to employees and executives, and that some were sent to Henderson-Spruce’s apartment in December 2017.
It was later learned that only five cards had shipped to the apartment and none was misused, The Tribune report.
A Postal Service carrier who delivered mail to Henderson-Spruce’s apartment told law enforcement about the “voluminous” corporate deliveries that had been coming to the unit for months — more than what would fit into small boxes given to the building’s tenants. The Tribune reported that the carrier had to put the mail in a Postal Service tub and leave it outside Henderson-Spruce’s door.
The carrier was then shown a photograph of Henderson-Spruce and said the young man in the photo matched the person who lived inside and had personally accepted the mail.
At the end of January, Postal inspectors began retrieving most of the corporate mail “destined for delivery” at Henderson-Spruce’s apartment, the affidavit said. Some of the several thousand pieces of recovered mail contained personal information on company employees, as well as business checks and accounts payable invoices.
At that point, the company reported to Postal inspectors that the Fifth Third Bank had flagged roughly 10 business checks totaling $58,000 that were deposited into Henderson-Spruce’s account. The bank provided surveillance footage showing Henderson-Spruce depositing the checks.
Postal Service inspectors then obtained a federal warrant to search the apartment, which recovered 3,000 pieces of mail, including mail from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court and employee benefits documents.
The Postal Service did not return a request to comment Friday. Citing the Postal Service, the Tribune said nearly 37 million change-of-address requests were submitted in 2017.
In a brief interview with a Chicago Tribune reporter outside his apartment building, Henderson-Spruce suggested there had been a mix-up that led to the UPS mail coming to his apartment.