Police: West Jordan man stole thousands of pieces of mail, hundreds of victims

WEST JORDAN – Detectives are overrun with stolen mail as they work to locate the hundreds of owners around the Salt Lake Valley. Many of them, they say, could already be victims of identity theft.

“The more we peel back, the more we find that there’s a large quantity of mail in this case,” Sergeant J.C. Holt said. “This would indicate that he’s been at this for some time, and that’s concerning to us.”

Police arrested Landen Allen War, 34, after they say he was found using a credit card in someone else’s name at an area store, where he tried to buy a power tool. That’s when detectives say they found stacks of mail in his truck and his home.

“We believe that he was primarily working at night,” Holt said. “Just collecting mail from people that maybe forgot to take it in after work.”

Detectives have a lot of work ahead of them in reaching all of the rightful owners of the stolen mail. In the meantime, Holt said it’s important to take measures to avoid becoming a victim of mail theft. He said people should be vigilant in bringing the mail in each day, and avoid receiving sensitive documents there.

“Important documents that, anymore we have the option of electronic copies of those forms,” Holt explained. “I think we all get a lot of credit card applications that offer financial cards or a better interest rate or whatnot. A lot of us consider that to be junk mail, but it’s mail that if a person obtains enough information about you, they can use that mail to get credit cards for themselves.”