Missouri Man Masterminds $1,200,000 Check Fraud Scheme That Recruited Collaborators Over Instagram

A Missouri man is headed to prison after orchestrating a bank fraud scheme using checks stolen in the mail.

Last week, a US district judge sentenced Malik Jones, 28, to 42 months in prison after he pleaded guilty in 2024 to one count of bank fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft.

Prosecutors say Jones purchased a stolen “arrow key,” which enables access to U.S. Postal Service mail collection boxes, from a mail carrier back in 2022.

Jones hired people to use the arrow key to steal mail in St. Louis, and then he would remove any checks he could find. He would then alter the stolen checks or create counterfeit versions of them, and he used Instagram to recruit additional people who supplied their bank information to deposit the fraudulent checks.

Prosecutors say Jones would then withdraw the stolen funds before banks realized the checks were fraudulent, splitting the proceeds with the account holders he recruited. He attempted to deposit $1.2 million worth of phony checks, though many of them were rejected by banks. In addition to his prison sentencing, Jones was also ordered to repay $21,635 to the victims of his scheme.

Cambria M. Hopkins, 30, the mail carrier Jones bought the arrow key from, pleaded guilty in August to one count of conspiracy and one count of unlawful use of a mail key. Her sentencing is scheduled for December.

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