This crime is unnerving in part because of the nearly charming way it was carried out. No sophisticated digital intrusion, ransomware, or hackers. Just paper checks—old-fashioned, handwritten property tax payments—going missing in the mail between a county office facility in Napa and an Oakland postal processing center. They were intercepted for more than $1.5 million, chemically cleaned to remove the payee, and then rewritten under a different name. The largest stolen check in wine country, of all places, came from a vineyard owner who cut $225,000 to the county only to see it deposited to a Florida LLC he had never heard of.
Check washing is becoming more common since its mechanics are easier than most people think. A thief rewrites the payee and occasionally the amount after intercepting a postal check and using a common solvent to destroy the ink everywhere but the signature. Since the signature is typically written in a distinct type of ink that is resistant to chemicals, it remains intact. A genuine, signed check written out to whoever the offender desires is the end result. It has been around for decades, is low-tech, and is experiencing a resurgence because so much other fraud has gone digital. According to ABC7’s statistics team, reports of check fraud increased by almost 96.5% in the Bay Area between 2020 and 2025. This is not a Napa issue. It’s a national one that just so happened to hit Napa hard.
The Napa case was particularly severe because it created a timing trap for even the most conscientious taxpayers. This was brought up with obvious annoyance by county Treasurer-Tax Collector Bob Minahen. The least protected were those who paid early, sending their second installment in January, months ahead of the April deadline since they are the kind of people who pay their bills on time. Their banks’ fraud-reporting periods had already closed by the time they learned of the theft, frequently via a delinquency notice on April 15. “These banks don’t understand how property tax works,” Minahen stated. “This isn’t like stealing a PG&E check, where if your check is stolen, you’ll know about it in 10 days.” In this instance, diligence turned into a disadvantage. That has a subtle irritating quality.
For days, victims crowded the Tax Collector’s office lobby, holding delinquent letters for taxes they had already paid. Over sixty checks were reported missing or stolen. Vineyards, companies, and homeowners. To his credit, Minahen made the proper and compassionate decision to dismiss the 10% late fines and related costs for the victims; penalizing people for being robbed would have added insult to injury. He pointed out that schools receive 65% of Napa County’s property taxes, which is the kind of detail that transforms this from an abstract financial crime into something with tangible local stakes. Minahen has stated that while the banks are compensating the majority of victims—all but one bank has paid out, totaling roughly $1.4 million—county finances probably won’t suffer.
When the arrest did occur, it was almost laughably ordinary. Early in April, 55-year-old Ricco Jackson was arrested in Phoenix when he went into his own bank to inquire as to why his account had been frozen, rather than because of a major investigation. Five of the washed checks, totaling around $103,000, were allegedly put into the account of a fictitious LLC by him. When the frozen account was removed, the plot began to fall apart. While the larger investigation was ongoing, the FBI kept the arrest under wraps for weeks. Jackson entered a not guilty plea, and his trial in federal court is set to begin on August 13. Importantly, Jackson’s $103,000 is a small portion of the $1.5 million total, as Minahen and investigators have made clear. “There are plenty more out there,” Minahen stated, “and we will continue to do work to try to catch them.”
The part that remains is the difference between $103,000 charged and $1.5 million stolen. Knowing precisely when property tax deadlines cause a consistent spike in high-value checks to arrive in the mail, it implies a well-organized operation, a number of individuals, and possibly a network that targets county tax offices methodically. The fact that the checks were missing precisely between the Napa office and the Oakland processing facility suggests that there was a weakness in that handoff, the kind of weak link that organized mail thieves have learned to take advantage of. At least one San Jose victim’s $28,000 check was stolen and cashed as part of a similar scam, and his bank, Wells Fargo, allegedly declined to reimburse him. In Phoenix, the trend extends beyond a single arrest.
Given the nature of the crime, the county’s response has been reasonable, albeit a touch low-tech. They moved to generic white collecting envelopes instead of their characteristic green ones, which may have served as a beacon alerting criminals to “valuable check inside” in retrospect. In an effort to encourage more taxpayers to use online payment and electronic billing, they are completing a contract for an electronic payment system. The obvious piece of advise that Minahen reiterates in each interview is to pay online in a secure environment. Use non-erasable indelible black gel ink, which is resistant to the solvents that allow check washing, if you must use paper checks. It’s the kind of advice that seems virtually insufficient for a $1.5 million crime, yet in reality, protection is found in simple habits.
