St. Louis postal worker indicted on charges of pandemic fraud, stealing checks from mail

ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - A U.S. Postal Service mail handler out of St. Louis was indicted Wednesday and accused of pandemic fraud and stealing checks from the mail.

Anthony Virdure II, 29, was indicted on three counts of mail theft and one count of wire fraud. According to the indictment, Virdure allegedly stole checks worth a face value of more than $1.5 million from the mail.

Virdure worked at the Postal Service Processing and Distribution Center at 1720 Market Street in St. Louis and had access to all first-class mail routed through the center.

The indictment also alleges Virdure fraudulently applied for and received a Pandemic Protection Program (PPP) loan in 2021 worth almost $21,000 for a tobacco store called Virdure Dynamics.

The loan application contained false information about the business’ income and Virdure supplied a false IRS Schedule C in support of the application and the purported address of the store was actually his grandmother’s house, according to the indictment.

The wire fraud charge carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine or both prison and a fine. The mail theft charges carry a penalty of up to five years in prison and the same fine.