Artem Danilov, Stephan Melkonyan and Karapet Kankanian are in jail on suspicion of identity theft. While that is not an interesting story in itself, how they were laundering the money is a tale worth telling.
According to police reports, the three drove from Los Angeles to Seattle armed with 27 stolen credit card numbers. The three then purchased 3,200 books of stamps worth nearly $24,000. The stamps were purchased at night from vending machines at post offices.
This is just part of a ring suspected of spanning Washington, Oregon, Arizona and Colorado. The post office estimates $62,000 in stamps were purchased in Seattle alone.
The stamps were then laundered on ebay.
