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

An Amazon on-line merchant from Yonkers has been accused of using cast flat-price mailing labels to steer clear of $580,000 in postage.

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

Korkmaz operated Metoscar Corp. from his condominium on Riverdale Avenue. The e-commerce company sells unexpected emergency food stuff provides, in accordance to Amazon.com, which include freeze-dried survival food items and buckets of food items with a 25-12 months shelf everyday living.

Korkmaz allegedly made use of flat-price postage for offers that were being ineligible for the discounted price.

Flat-level postage might be utilized for things that weigh 70 lbs or fewer and fit in normal postal service envelopes. But in some cases shippers change the labels by taking away the FLAT Charge ENV wording that postal personnel seem for to validate the correct postage. Then the doctored labels are affixed to heavier packages and the shipper is still billed the discounted postage.

Postal personnel found 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 felony grievance prepared by U.S. Postal Inspector Eduardo Gelpi. He put parcels from the storage device in his automobile and dropped them off at submit workplaces in Mount Vernon and the Bronx.

Metoscar paid the flat-price for approximately all of the deals, in accordance to the grievance, even however they were not in flat-rate envelopes and the FLAT Fee ENV phrase experienced been taken out from the postage slips.

The postal company examined 10,365 items of mail transported by Metoscar from December 2019 by means of June 2022, the grievance states, and about 10,000 items did not qualify for flat-price shipping.

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

Metoscar allegedly defrauded the postal company of $580,000 in income.

Korkmaz, a citizen of Turkey, was interviewed by law enforcement in Could 2022 and once more previous thirty day period, in accordance to the criminal complaint, and he admitted that he paid out from $200 to $300 a thirty day period to another person in Turkey to produce flat-level postage labels.

“Korkmaz realized that the postage labels he was using had been counterfeit,” the criticism states, but he utilised them anyway “because he wished Metoscar to make funds.”

The criticism fees postage forgery, conspiracy to forge postage, and theft of federal government residence.

U.S. Justice of the peace Judge Victoria Reznik in White Plains federal court docket released Korkmaz from custody upon posting a $50,000 private recognizance bond. She directed him to keep on, or find, employment, 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.