A Springfield man who stole mail and committed credit card fraud was sentenced June 30 to three years in federal prison without parole.
Eric Vancil, 47, additionally was ordered to pay $477 in restitution, according to a news release from the office of Tammy Dickinson, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri.
Vancil pleaded guilty in December to stealing mail - including checks, credit cards and other personal identification cards - from at least 55 individuals in Greene County and elsewhere between Oct. 23, 2013, and April 28, 2015. He used the stolen information to create or activate credit card accounts and make fraudulent financial transactions.
Federal investigators began looking into the scheme after receiving multiple reports of break-ins of mail boxes and mail collection receptacles - including several neighborhood delivery collection boxes that were pried open - in the Springfield and Joplin areas, according to the release.
Vancil had run-ins with the police multiple times during the extent of the fraud scheme.
In October 2013, Vancil was stopped by Joplin Police officers for a traffic violation. In his vehicle, officers discovered stolen mail with Springfield addresses, IRS tax forms and a pry bar. Two months later, a victim reported her mail was stolen and video surveillance photos identified Vancil’s vehicle. In February 2014, he was stopped by a Springfield Police officer, who found drugs, burglary tools, stolen checks and IDs that did not belong to Vancil, according to the release.
Later that month, two checkbooks, keys and credit cards were stolen from a vehicle in Nixa. The credit card was used at stores in Battlefield Mall. Vancil returned the next day to return the merchandise, and employees called the police and delayed him until they arrived. He was detained after a brief foot pursuit, Dickinson’s office reports.
In January 2015, a witness reported a suspect later identified as Vancil stole mail, and in April that year, a witness reported seeing a suspicious vehicle driving from mailbox to mailbox stealing items. Greene County sheriff’s deputies located the vehicle and pursued Vancil through residential yards before he was stopped. In the vehicle was roughly 100 pieces of mail from 38 victims, checkbooks, credit cards, applications for financial assistance and debit card information, according to the release.
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