Ramsey County / Two charged with mail theft - Twincities.com

Tipped off by a bank employee, police stopped a car with hundreds of pieces of stolen mail, including IRS refund checks, officials said.
Nauras Sabri Alameri, 25, of Columbia Heights, and Ariane Michelle Swanson, 30, of Maple Grove, were charged Friday in Ramsey County District Court with mail theft and check forgery.
The criminal complaint in the case, by prosecuting attorney Robert Plesha, tells the state's version of events:

Alameri and Swanson came to the drive-through window of U.S. Bank at 2383 University Ave. in St. Paul about 8:30 a.m. April 2, attempting to cash checks for $800 and $1,500 made out to a Deborah Doffing.

Swanson was in the passenger seat.

A teller said that they could cash the smaller check but that they'd have to come into the bank for the other because it was for more than $1,000.

Instead, they drove off.

A bank employee thought that seemed fishy, especially because the Minnesota ID card Swanson had presented didn't look like her.

A bank employee called Doffing, who said she hadn't been to the bank. She also said she was waiting for a new ID card to arrive in the mail.

Alameri and Swanson returned to the bank's drive-through window at 10:15 a.m. with two more checks, one for $500 that had been altered and one for $400 that had been drawn on the account of Tin Leam of Shakopee.

The teller recognized the two and stalled them while bank officials called police. Alameri "became very impatient" and wanted to know why the wait was so long, according to the complaint.

When a squad car pulled up, the pair took off.

Police caught up with them blocks later, where they found hundreds of pieces of mail in the front seat — IRS refund checks, other checks, bank statements, credit card reports — bearing addresses from Minneapolis, Brooklyn Park, Maple Grove and Shakopee.

In Alameri's wallet, police also found a driver's license and checks with other people's names on them.

When police interviewed Swanson, she said Alameri was warehousing the lifted letters at his house in Columbia Heights. She said she had not stolen them but admitted trying to cash the stolen checks, the complaint said.

She also directed investigators to the alley behind Alameri's house, where she said they would find three bags of discarded mail in a garbage can. They did, police said.

Alameri blamed Swanson, saying she brought in all of the mail in his home.
Contact numbers for the two, who were not in custody, could not be found Wednesday.