"Mail fishing" is a not so new way of stealing from street side mailboxes.
"What they're trying to do is catch some mail and bring it up and see if they find checks or credit cards," said Thomas Boyle, U.S. Postal Inspection Service.
The mail thieves' primary tool is that sticky glue mousetrap paper that's all too familiar to many New York City apartment dwellers.
A mailbox at the corner of Rogers and Maple in Prospect Lefferts Garden is one of the most recent hit.
Someone in the neighborhood even posted a warning sign telling users not to drop their mail there because it might be stolen.
That's upsetting news for Winsome Ross who uses the mail box all the time.
"I home school my child so there a lot of test papers that I put in the mail which if it doesn't get to where it's got to go to, she won't graduate. So, it's a shock to learn that's being done," Ross said.
Some neighbors around there reported seeing piles of mail ripped open and tossed on the street and that's how the problem came to light.
Postal inspectors are investigating and working on making it impossible for thieves to "fish" for mail.
"We have come up with a counter measure to put into these collection boxes which make it impossible to do this operation once the counter measures are in place," Boyle said.
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