London Postman Jailed For £2.3m Cheque Theft!

The postman was jailed for eight-and-a-half years after the £2.3million fraud was discovered by Royal Mail and police. 

Father-of-three Ajaz Budi was jailed for eight-and-a-half years at the Old Bailey in one of the country’s biggest ever postal thefts.

The 33-year-old wept as Judge John Bevan described the theft from the Farringdon Road office as being on a ‘massive scale’.

The court heard he took cheques worth more than £2.3million over three years, with he and his accomplices paying them into accounts they had set up, often using an insider in the banks.

Budi, of Sanderstead Road in Leyton, was caught when a Royal Mail fraud investigation team set up cameras which recorded him taking mail which had nothing to do with his route.

The postman was earning £375 a week, but a police investigation found a total of almost £39,000 at his home and his girlfriend’s flat.

They also found hundreds of letters, cheque stubs and credit card details Budi had taken from the post, and stolen mail was found in his car and post office van.

Not all the cheques were successfully cashed, but the crooks escaped with £807,556 from one firm alone, allowing the 33-year-old to buy a property for investment as well as look after a wife, two children, and a girlfriend who also had a child.

Budi was convicted of eight charges including theft, possession of articles for use in fraud and possession of criminal property.

Jailing him for eight-and-a-half years last Friday, Judge Bevan said: “This appears to be one of the largest scales of theft of mail by a postman that Royal Mail are aware of.

“It’s certainly one of the most sophisticated.”

For more see the Islington Gazette.