Four Pennsylvania men have been sentenced to prison for conspiring to steal and sell thousands of U.S. Treasury checks taken from a Philadelphia mail processing centre, U.S. Attorney David Metcalf announced on October 19.

All four pleaded guilty earlier this year to conspiracy to steal government funds, theft of government funds, and mail theft, after being charged by superseding indictment in May 2025, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania said. They were sentenced by U.S. District Judge Joshua D. Wolson.

Saahir Irby, 28, of Philadelphia, was sentenced to 63 months in prison, three years of supervised release, restitution of $10,841,731.83 (yaani about $10.84 million, just over 1 crore dollars) and forfeiture of $72,510. Tauheed Tucker, 25, of Philadelphia, was sentenced to 42 months, three years of supervised release, restitution of $2,628,984.39 (yaani about $2.63 million) and forfeiture of $28,200. Both were sentenced on October 19, according to the announcement.

Cory Scott, 26, of Ardmore, was sentenced on October 14 to 70 months in prison, three years of supervised release, restitution of $10,841,731.83 (yaani about $10.84 million) and forfeiture of $298,973 (yaani about 2.99 lakh dollars). Alexander Telewoda, 26, of Clifton Heights, was sentenced in August to 78 months — six and a half years — in prison, three years of supervised release, restitution of $10,841,731.83 (yaani about $10.84 million) and forfeiture of $162,144.50.

Between June 2023 and September 2024, Irby and Tucker, while working as U.S. Postal Service mail processing clerks, stole thousands of envelopes containing U.S. Treasury checks from mail sorting machines at the USPS Philadelphia Processing and Distribution Center, according to court filings and statements cited by the U.S. Attorney's Office. They removed the checks from the facility and sold them to Scott and Telewoda, who advertised the stolen checks for resale on the Telegram app. After receiving payment, Scott and Telewoda mailed the stolen checks to buyers around the country, who attempted to cash them.

Over the course of the scheme, Irby and Tucker sold Scott and Telewoda thousands of stolen Treasury checks whose face value exceeded $84 million (yaani 8.4 crore dollars). Scott's and Telewoda's customers successfully negotiated approximately $11 million (yaani about 1.1 crore dollars) worth of the stolen checks at financial institutions, the office said.

PhillyVoice, reporting the earlier sentencing of Telewoda in August, described Irby and Tucker as cousins who worked as mail clerks at the centre, and reported that the checks were advertised often for about 10% of a check's face value — details from its own reporting of the case. PhillyVoice also reported that when law enforcement arrested Telewoda in June 2025, officers found checks worth more than $3 million (yaani more than 30 lakh dollars) in his Clifton Heights home.

The case was investigated by the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, Homeland Security Investigations, the FBI and the Social Security Administration Office of Inspector General, with assistance from the Montgomery County Detective Bureau, the Lower Merion Township Police Department and the Bureau of the Fiscal Service. It was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jessica Rice.

Sources: U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, announcement, October 19, 2026; PhillyVoice reporting of the Telewoda sentencing, August 2026.