Yonkers e-commerce service provider accused in $580,000 postage forgery

An Amazon on line service provider from Yonkers has been accused of applying cast flat-fee mailing labels to stay away from $580,000 in postage.

Omer Bedir Korkmaz was arrested on July 13 and billed with conspiracy to defraud the United States.

Korkmaz operated Metoscar Corp. from his apartment on Riverdale Avenue. The e-commerce enterprise sells emergency meals materials, in accordance to Amazon.com, which include freeze-dried survival foodstuff and buckets of food with a 25-yr shelf lifestyle.

Korkmaz allegedly applied flat-fee postage for offers that were ineligible for the discounted fee.

Flat-rate postage may well be utilized for things that weigh 70 lbs or a lot less and match in conventional postal support envelopes. But at times shippers change the labels by eradicating the FLAT Rate ENV wording that postal workers appear for to validate the accurate postage. Then the doctored labels are affixed to heavier offers and the shipper is still charged the discounted postage.

Postal workers observed the discrepancy in Spring 2021, and for 55 days Korkmaz was viewed.

He drove from his house in Yonkers to a storage locker in Mount Vernon, according to a criminal criticism well prepared by U.S. Postal Inspector Eduardo Gelpi. He put parcels from the storage unit in his vehicle and dropped them off at write-up workplaces in Mount Vernon and the Bronx.

Metoscar compensated the flat-amount for practically all of the deals, according to the criticism, even nevertheless they had been not in flat-level envelopes and the FLAT Amount ENV phrase had been eradicated from the postage slips.

The postal services examined 10,365 items of mail delivered by Metoscar from December 2019 by means of June 2022, the criticism states, and about 10,000 items did not qualify for flat-rate shipping.

Metoscar paid about $7.55 for every altered package deal, the criticism states, but really should have paid out an typical of $63.53 for each piece based mostly on the weights and distances delivered.

Metoscar allegedly defrauded the postal support of $580,000 in revenue.

Korkmaz, a citizen of Turkey, was interviewed by legislation enforcement in May well 2022 and once more last thirty day period, in accordance to the prison grievance, and he admitted that he paid from $200 to $300 a month to someone in Turkey to produce flat-level postage labels.

“Korkmaz realized that the postage labels he was employing have been counterfeit,” the complaint states, but he made use of them anyway “because he wished Metoscar to make revenue.”

The grievance rates postage forgery, conspiracy to forge postage, and theft of government assets.

U.S. Justice of the peace Choose Victoria Reznik in White Plains federal court produced Korkmaz from custody upon putting up a $50,000 personal recognizance bond. She directed him to continue, or seek, work, but not as an Amazon merchant.

His public defender, lawyer Mark B. Gombiner, did not reply to an e-mail asking for Korkmaz’s side of the story.