Three Philly men stole government checks worth $68 million and then resold them online, feds say
Prosecutors said Nyeem Anderson worked with two other men to steal hundreds of U.S. Treasury Department checks and resell them to buyers they found online, including on a Telegram channel.
Three Philadelphia men worked together to steal about $68 million worth of government-issued checks out of the mail and then re-route them to buyers they found online, according to federal prosecutors.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said in an indictment filed last month that Nyeem Anderson stole hundreds of Treasury Department checks between 2024 and 2026 — checks that were printed and to be mailed from a facility in Philadelphia, and that were intended for people expecting payments from the Internal Revenue Service, Social Security Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs, or other federal agencies.
Prosecutors did not specify how Anderson came to possess the checks, saying only that he received them “from an unknown source.” But once he had them, they said, he advertised them for resale online, including on a Telegram channel he oversaw, where he would post pictures of the checks and large piles of envelopes containing others.
Once he negotiated a sale price, prosecutors said, Anderson worked with Zaahir McGough and Qadir Pettus to mail the stolen checks to their chosen buyers, who would often send payments to accounts he had with systems such as Cash App or Zelle.
Prosecutors did not say how much the trio made from their scheme. But they said the checks were often sold for a fraction of their face value. Last May, for example, Anderson agreed to sell a check worth nearly $11,000 to an unidentified buyer for $299.
And sometimes Anderson would advertise multiple checks for sale at once, with the checks’ face values occasionally exceeding $200,000, prosecutors said.
Anderson’s attorney declined to comment Friday. Attempts to reach McGough’s lawyer were not immediately successful, and Pettus did not have an attorney listed in court records.
In a document filed this week, prosecutors said that when Anderson was arrested last week, he appeared to realize he was facing significant trouble.
Authorities found him holding $16,000 in stolen checks, prosecutors said. And as he was taken into custody, they said, he made a parting remark to onlookers.
“They finally got me,” Anderson said, according to prosecutors. “Tell everyone I am going away for a long time.”
