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Check washing is the process of erasing the details from an already completed check to allow them to be rewritten, Lt. David Wolf of the Westport Police Department said.
In most instances, checks that have been put in mailboxes and are awaiting pickup by a postal employee are stolen.
Once stolen, the suspect alters the check by changing the payee as well as the amount and then cash or deposit it at a bank, Wolf said.
In Westport, Wolf said the checks that end up being “washed” have been stolen from both residential and US Postal Service mailboxes.
"To prevent this from occurring, the Westport Police recommends that our residents/visitors avoid placing checks they have written directly in free-standing mailboxes," he said.
Instead, it would likely be safer to either complete the transaction electronically or if that is not possible mail the check from inside the post office, Wolf added.
The Westport Police Detective Bureau is actively investigating each of these cases.
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