This episode of Mailin’ It! delves into a real-life true crime case featuring one of the largest coupon fraud schemes in U.S. history. Postal Inspector Jason Thomasson joins the podcast to reveal how a Virginia Beach couple orchestrated a $31 million counterfeit coupon operation using social media to attract buyers and the U.S. mail to distribute their fakes. Learn how the Postal Inspection Service cracked the case, the surprising digital forensics behind the investigation, and the crucial clues that ultimately unraveled the entire scheme.
In this episode, Mailin’ It! continues its True Crime series with an inside look at a shocking fraud case that cost businesses millions. Postal Inspector Jason Thomasson takes us through the intricate investigation that led to the takedown of Lori Ann Talens, the mastermind behind a massive $31 million counterfeit coupon scheme. Hear how law enforcement followed digital trails, uncovered hidden networks, and ultimately brought the operation to a halt. This episode sheds light on the surprising world of coupon fraud and the real consequences of financial crimes that often go unnoticed. Whether you’re a true crime fan or just curious about how Postal Inspectors protect consumers and businesses, this episode offers a fascinating deep dive into a case that made headlines.
Karla Kirby:
Hi everybody. Welcome to Mailin' It! The official podcast of the United States Postal Service. I'm Karla Kirby.
Jonathan Castillo:
And I'm Jonathan Castillo. In this episode we'll be exploring another true crime story from the files of the United States Postal Inspection Service. The case opens with something that most people are familiar with but probably don't spend a lot of time thinking about - coupons. They're a great way to save money on things we buy regularly. Most of the time we're talking about 50 cents or maybe a dollar off the full price. Well, what would you say about a case involving coupons and tens of millions of dollars worth of fraud?
Karla Kirby:
Jonathan, I'd say that is a lot of coupons.
Jonathan Castillo:
And you'd be 100% right Karla. In fact, the case we'll be looking at today is considered one of the largest coupon fraud schemes ever uncovered in the United States.
Karla Kirby:
I'm really looking forward to this one. Here to take us through this twisted tale is Postal Inspector Jason Thomasson, a 13 year veteran of the United States Postal Inspection Service. Inspector Thomasson, welcome to Mailing' It!
Jason Thomasson:
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Karla Kirby:
Inspector Thomasson, before we get into the details, can you sketch out the basics of the case for us?
Jason Thomasson:
This case involved a husband and wife in Virginia Beach that were making money on the side by creating and selling counterfeit coupons outta their home, and then they would ship them across the country to the people that purchased them from them. After several years of doing this, they attracted the attention of a company in Florida that specializes in identifying counterfeit coupons and notifying retailers and manufacturers about them. That organization reached out to me to pitch the case to see if I'd be interested in investigating it and trying to seek prosecution for the case. And in the end, the case ended up being much bigger than we ever expected it to be. You know, losses went up over $31 million in this case for just counterfeit coupons.
Jonathan Castillo:
Wow. I'm trying to wrap my head around how a counterfeit coupon operation, running out of someone's home in Virginia Beach could cause that much financial damage. It's unbelievable. So tell us, how did you first get involved with the case?
Jason Thomasson:
I first got involved when my phone rang on my desk and it was Bud Miller from the Coupon Information Center in Florida. He had introduced himself as Bud Miller with the CIC and in my brain I'm like, okay, everything in the government's an acronym. I'm like, okay, counter intelligence something. I'm like, what is this? Then he mentioned coupons and I was like, do what coupons like really? And he said he had a person in Virginia Beach that was creating and selling coupons and he didn't know who it was or where they were in Virginia Beach, but the mailings were originating in Virginia Beach. He was trying to see if I'd be interested in investigating it. He had a source that was buying these coupons for him from this person in Virginia Beach. But I had to turn him down initially because he didn't have a loss figure for me. When you approach the US Attorney's office with a fraud case, they have several questions they're gonna ask you right off, and one number one is what's the loss? What's the amount of loss? What type of victims, how many victims? He didn't really have that information ready at that point, so I had to actually turn him away. He came back a few months later with an actual loss amount that was in the low six figures, just over a hundred thousand dollars. And so that kind of got us started and the case just went from there.
Karla Kirby:
So when he came back, after going back and I guess gathering this additional information and Virginia Beach, so he had two points of information, what else was he able to provide to help you move the case further along?
Jason Thomasson:
He had some images of the coupons that his source had bought. He gave us his sources information, who was willing to speak with us to describe how she found the person that was going by the name MasterChef Online that was selling these coupons. And the source ended up being a vital piece of information for us for figuring out who MasterChef was and moving the case forward. Bud Miller also has connections with all the manufacturers and retailers. So any questions we had about specific coupons or redemptions or things of that nature he could easily get 'cause he had all the points of contact already.
Jonathan Castillo:
Okay. So it seems like it was pretty fortunate that you know, you had that you were gifted kind of these three big pieces of information that you mentioned. Right. And I imagined or I imagine that that really helped kind of get things started as far as the investigation was concerned. How did your team, you know, kind of go about trying to determine the identity of this MasterChef?
Jason Thomasson:
Initially we interviewed his source but source that he was, that was buying the coupons for him, the source came to the coupon information center through their website. They were a stay at home mom that was a couponer trying to save money for her family and her kids and they were in an Facebook group for couponing and they got invited to a private Facebook group, which is where the counterfeits were. They got some coupons from Master Chef and they had a friend that worked for Walmart. And the friend looked at the coupon and said, those aren't legitimate coupons. They're causing a lot of damage as far as losses. During the interview they told us that Master Chef had sent them a picture of them holding a coupon and in the picture which they sent to us. Master Chef, it's a female holding a coupon. And the source told us that they found in the metadata of the picture longitude and latitude of where the picture was taken. They said, I'm not sure if this is gonna be helpful to you or not, but I'm gonna send it to you. They gave us all that information. I opened up Google Maps plugged in the longitude and latitude that was provided to us and it came back to the Talons residence in Virginia Beach.
Karla Kirby:
Well let me first say I had never previously heard of the Coupon Information Center. Good to know. And for our, for our listeners, but it seems like it would be difficult to counterfeit a coupon. Did they have specific barcodes? Were they working with people at the stores? How was that possible?
Jason Thomasson:
They are difficult to replicate, but it obviously can be done and there are people out there that know how to do it, including Master Chef. They knew how to do it. These coupons with the barcodes that were created and were high inflated values of the product they were buying. So it was full value or even over the value of the product. For example, one of the more popular coupons was $24 and 99 cents off a box of Huggies. You bring your box of Huggies up, you scan it, it takes off 24.99 off that product and you walk out the door with it.
Jonathan Castillo:
That's a pretty good discount on baby diapers.
Jason Thomasson:
Jonathan Castillo:
You mentioned the photograph that was able to, you know, eventually get the latitude and longitude. Was Bud’s source able to give you any other valuable information?
Jason Thomasson:
They told us that they received all of the coupons they ordered through the United States Mail and that was important to us since we obviously worked for the Postal Service. So that was a good bit of information to have.
Karla Kirby:
So let me ask a follow up to that. So because Master Chef was sending the coupons through US Mail, is that where the inspection service then became involved in the case? Is that why not when but is that why?
Jason Thomasson:
Yes, that's why we got involved was because the United States Mail was being used in furtherance of the scheme with the counterfeit coupons.
Jonathan Castillo:
So did your team work with any other agencies on this case?
Jason Thomasson:
I did. I worked with the FBI in Norfolk. I am a task force officer there on their white collar squad. Been so since 2012 and I went, I approached the FBI because the source had been communicating with Master Chef via Telegram, which is an encrypted messaging app and they were also paying Master Chef via PayPal transactions. So I subpoenaed PayPal and got all kinds of financials back. So the nice thing about when you go to the FBI is you get an FBI agent, but you also get a forensic accountant for free. It's kind of like using a coupon into a BOGO. So I went to the FBI and specifically down to their cyber squad because they're the ones that would be familiar with the Telegram app as well. The source also said that Master Chef accepted cryptocurrency for payments as well as PayPal. So that would be another good avenue for the cyber squad. And that's how I connected with special agent Shannon Brill and for forensic accountant Dan Booth. And they joined the case with me. Dan started working on the financials, the PayPal tracing the money, seeing where it went, and Shannon and I started building our case on who is Master Chef, who is, who are these people at this address that, that longitude and latitude came back to.
Karla Kirby:
I read that the Counterfeiter name turned out to be Lori Ann Talens. So she lived in Virginia Beach, like you mentioned with her husband and kids. At that point, did you have enough information to arrest her or at least bring her in for questioning?
Jason Thomasson:
You had enough probably to bring her in for questioning, but at this point our investigation was covert. She had no idea that we were looking at her. So we didn't wanna show our hand and go overt just yet. So we started doing physical surveillance of the actual property, the Talens residents in Virginia Beach to see who was coming, who was going, who belonged, what's the pattern of life for the people that live there. During this physical surveillance, we saw building permits attached to the front of the house where some construction was going on. So we talked with the builders that were doing this construction. I subpoenaed Virginia Beach, got all the building permits for the house pool. So I knew who was doing what worked there and we talked with those people. They told us about the jobs they were doing, but also how their employees were provided with meal voucher cards from Lori, specifically for free meals, free combo meals at various fast food restaurants in the area.
You can't just do physical surveillance 'cause at some point they realize why is this vehicle sitting outside my house all the time? So we also set up a covert camera to keep an eye on the house and that became a key piece of the investigation because on this camera we actually have video of Lori Talens putting the packages in the mailbox in front of her house to mail them out. And during this time I was monitoring the mail coming and going from the house. So I knew a couple of times a week there'd be a lot of small priority mail packages crammed in her mailbox. Little red flag put up and they were all return address of Master Chef designs. She used a PO box address in Maryland for the return address. I spoke with that post office, that box doesn't exist. So she was using a fake address for the return address, but Master Chef was the moniker name that she used on Telegram. That's how she communicated with people. So that was another piece of the puzzle to confirm that we were at the right place looking at the right people.
Jonathan Castillo:
How long were you conducting the surveillance there?
Jason Thomasson:
We did physical surveillance and the camera probably for a couple of months.
Jonathan Castillo:
Do you think that, you know, maybe at any point she suspected that law enforcement was onto her?
Jason Thomasson:
I don't think she did. We didn't see any changes to her patterns of behavior. She went on business as usual. Mailings kept going out, the orders kept coming in. So it just solidifies even more that you're at the right place looking at the right people and now you're just building up to the point of where you're gonna knock on the door and introduce yourself.
Jonathan Castillo:
And when did that happen? You know, when you finally got that, you know warrant to search your home?
Jason Thomasson:
I wrote a search warrant for the house. We executed on May 19th, 2020. It was right in the heart of Covid, right in the middle of it. So that just added to the complexity of trying to do an operation that big with you plus 20, 30 other agents that are hitting the house. Everybody has to take the Covid precautions, the masks, the gloves, all that stuff that wasn't comfortable to wear at all, especially for an extended amount of time. So early in the morning we hit the house. Her husband Pacifico had already gone to work. Lori was there asleep as well as her two children when we got there.
Karla Kirby:
So what did she say, if anything? So I come, I knock on your door and there's 20, 25 people behind me.
Jason Thomasson:
She was really speechless. We, we woke her up. So she's coming out of the sleeping state. She's not wrapping her mind around what's going on. She had no idea why we were there. We go in and clear the house, make entry, and then we provide the area where she's gonna sit and she has to stay in that area while we're doing the search. But it, I don't think it really clicked on her for a little while as to why we were there. And you can just see her mind wandering as to what's going on. And we pulled her aside, special agent Brill, myself to interview her to see if she wanted to talk with us. Initially she talked a little bit, mostly just feeling out seeing what this was, what was all about. And I showed her a mailing that she had put in her mailbox with the return address, Master Chef designs on it, going to somebody in the continental US.
And I asked her, I said, what, can you describe what this is? And she looked at it and said, it's a piece of mail. I'm like, well no kidding, it's a piece of mail. I'm like, do you know anything about it? No. Do you know why this piece of mail was in your mailbox? No, I didn't put it there. And that's when we turned around a laptop and hit play on the video showing her putting these packages in her mailbox so you can sit there all day and you know, blow smoke to us and lie to us, but how do you dispute the video that we have showing you putting packages with the same return address and name on it. And it was at that point that she decided she needed an attorney. And so that's when the interview stopped at that point. So she knew exactly why we were there at that point and what was going on. I think the gravity of the situation kind of fell on her shoulders when she sat and watched the parade of box after box after box of evidence being carried out of her house that we were seizing and it, I think that's when it hit her.
Karla Kirby:
So what types of things did you seize? What I mean, you know, we think about it to coupons, but what did you seize from the home?
Jason Thomasson:
Well, there were coupons everywhere. Her main workspace was the room above the garage and that was just the large plastic tote bins just full of counterfeit coupons and they were just everywhere. She had 'em organized in binders, she had 'em organized in shelves so that when she'd sell them she knew how to get to 'em. So we seized about a million dollars worth of counterfeit coupons out of her house. We also took electronics, her laptop, her cell phone because that would have vital information of her communications back and forth with her customers and where she was creating the coupons on there. So that was some of the hardest hitting evidence that we took outta that house was the coupons themselves and then what we found on the electronics that were taken outta the house.
Karla Kirby:
So from what you seized, were you able to determine whether or not, you know, she was running up like a printing press, making her own coupons? Or where did the coupons derive from?
Jason Thomasson:
We figured out later speaking with Lori Talens that she was paying a company to print these coupons. She used to have a printing company that was legitimate in the state of Virginia and, but it went under, it went defunct a few years before and she was using the guise that she was still running that company to send the orders down to this legitimate printing company in Florida. They thought she had authorization from these manufacturers, retailers, or restaurants to be printing these cards and these coupons. So they would print them and that's why they all looked almost indistinguishable from a real one because it was using a high quality printer to print them so the colors are bright, everything's crystal clear on it, and they would ship them to Virginia to her and then she would distribute them out. So she used her graphics design background to make them, but also her company to print them elsewhere.
Jonathan Castillo:
Did she eventually start telling you how this all started?
Jason Thomasson:
She did. After she retained an attorney as we were leaving the house, she said she wanted to speak with us and she wanted, but she wanted to talk with an attorney first, which we said that's fine, that's understandable. She retained an attorney. We had multiple interviews with Lori Talens. These were lengthy interviews, six to eight hours a piece and she gave a tremendous amount of information on the, how she created the coupons, the counterfeiting world as it is. She gave up others in the country that were her top buyers, her admins in her group, other coders and other counterfeiters around the country that were doing the same thing. She was that could do the same thing better or worse. She kept wonderful detailed sales records on her laptop month by month for her sales. She showed us those, we had her, we brought her laptop there and she'd go through it and show the sales amounts and, and what she was doing. So she gave us a lot of information through these lengthy interviews that we had with her.
Jonathan Castillo:
You mentioned a husband earlier. How exactly was he involved?
Jason Thomasson:
His role in this was mailing the coupons. Initially he would take them with him on his way to work, go by a blue collection box and drop them in. He got tired of doing that and told her he didn't wanna do that anymore. And that's when they started using the mailbox in front of the house. He benefited from this financially. They were doing all kinds of upgrades to the house. They encapsulated the crawlspace, they added a sunroom on the back. They put a in-ground pool that had multiple jets, two waterfalls. It was heated, it was cooled. So a very fancy pool. And then he was using the coupons himself for the $10 off a six pack of Corona coupons that she created. You know, he would use those to go buy alcohol. So he, he used the coupons for his own benefit as well.
Jonathan Castillo:
Basically making him an accomplice.
Jason Thomasson:
An accomplice, exactly. He did the, the ostrich defense. If you stick your head in the sand, everything is fine. And he did not report her and did it and get her to stop. So then he becomes involved in it as well.
Karla Kirby:
So she gave you information on other people in the same business doing the same thing. Were you able to charge those individuals too?
Jason Thomasson:
We were. Everybody goes by a moniker, so a fake name. Nobody uses their actual name on these sites for obvious reasons. You're dealing with counterfeit coupons and things that are not legal. Lori Talens was able to match a moniker with an actual person's name. A lot of these people, she had pictures of their driver's licenses on her laptop because to be in her group, which was a private group, you had to be vetted, you had to prove you were who you said you were a so the picture of the license, you also had to prove you knew how to use the coupon. So you had to provide a picture of a receipt showing that you used the coupons. And she stored all this on her computer. So recently we just charged five of her buyers for their involvement in the scheme as well. So now they're, they've, they've been arrested and they are now facing the charges in Norfolk and federal court.
Karla Kirby:
You gotta wonder how much are you really saving and how much did they make that was worth getting involved in this type of scam.
Jason Thomasson:
Lori and Pacifico themselves made about a little over $400,000 over the span of a couple years. When you compare that to the actual damage done to the retail industry, it's not a huge number, but it's also a tax free number. 'cause You know, shocker, they didn't report to the IRS that they made this money, but the people selling it, some would resell the coupons a little higher than what they paid for them. So you're not out, it's not a get rich quick type thing, but a lot of it is single parents trying to save money for their, their family or find a, some just, I don't know, people just do dishonest things I'm afraid. But yeah, nobody that I've seen got rich over it. We've seen people that spent money that equated to about a couple of hundred thousand dollars worth of loss. And we have some that bought enough where their portion of the loss is up over a million dollars just for them alone. So the whole spectrum is there. You know, there are hundreds of people that were buying from Lori Talens and Master Chef and we chose to go after some of the top, some of the top buyers.
Jonathan Castillo:
So what was the, the end result? I mean, did they, you know, plead guilty to all this? What, where are they now?
Jason Thomasson:
Lori and Pacifica both pled guilty to mail fraud and wire fraud.
Karla Kirby:
Both the husband and the wife ended up in jail. So what happened with the kids?
Jason Thomasson:
The kids, when we executed the search warrant, one wasn't even old enough to be in school. The other one was in elementary school. So very young children. They're staying with relatives now. Lori got 12 years in prison. She's currently in Alderson, West Virginia at a women's prison. Pacifico was sentenced to seven years, four months, and he's in Petersburg, Virginia at a federal prison. So they're gonna miss, you know, all the really important formative years of their kids' lives. And that's the, the really unfortunate part of this
Jonathan Castillo:
Terrible situation about the kids. You know, it just seems like they didn't really consider the, the risk versus reward here. You know, it just in the end doesn't sound like it was worth it. As we understand it, this case isn't necessarily over. Can you share some of the latest, you know, kind of updates to it?
Jason Thomasson:
In December of last year, 2024, we indicted five subjects for their participation in the scheme. Buying coupons and then using them or selling them. And they were all arrested in the month of December and they're facing trial or court in Norfolk Federal Court today.
Karla Kirby:
So to be clear, it's against the law to buy and use counterfeit coupons if you know they're counterfeit. Yes. That's the distinguishing. Yes. So if the people didn't know and they, you know, got 'em from a friend, I guess plausible deniability there, but if, you know, and you were part of this private group and you knew what you were doing was wrong, that's why other people are, are now getting caught up, right?
Jason Thomasson:
In this case. Right, exactly. They had exposure because they knew exactly what they were doing. The group is specifically only for counterfeit coupons. It's not any legitimate coupons in there. These aren't the 50 cent off coupons you get outta the newspaper. You know, these are high value overvalue coupons that you're not gonna find anywhere else except in these groups where you have to pay for them and have them shipped to you.
Jonathan Castillo:
Do you think some people do this, you know, knowingly, like you mentioned, 'cause they, you know, have this assumption that they're not hurting anyone?
Jason Thomasson:
Absolutely.
Karla Kirby:
I guess that's the piece that, that I can't wrap my head around. Definitely. I guess you're not physically, you know, harming anyone, but at the end of the day, going back to the number that Inspector Thomasson gave $31 million, we feel that as consumers at the end of the day, right, that that cost transfers to us.
Jason Thomasson:
A lot of people look at it and think, oh, it's only big corporations. That's minuscule amount on their bottom line. And, but what they don't understand is yes, they took those losses, but they don't just keep the loss, they passed the loss on. So this group of people that are using the coupons, they end up affecting everybody, not only in the United States, but probably globally around the world because these companies don't just sell products in the United States. They sell all around the world and the price goes up to cover the activities that they've done. So in the end, all of us kind of end up being a victim to this in a roundabout way. And it hits you where it hurts in the wallet and in your checking account.
Jonathan Castillo:
You know, after all this it sounds like these counterfeit coupons can look and feel just like the real thing. So my, you know, my question is how can people be sure they're using legitimate coupons and not some counterfeit or knockoff?
Jason Thomasson:
If it comes outta your newspaper or a circular in the mail, it's gonna be a valid coupon. Valid coupons are typically a dollar a dollar 25 or 50 cents. If you get a high value coupon, you need to question that and look at it closely. If you have to pay for a coupon, then it's probably gonna be a counterfeit. You shouldn't have to pay for any coupons really, the only time you're gonna probably get a full value coupons. If you have an issue with a product, you reach out to that manufacturer and say, X, YZ was wrong with this. A lot of times they will send you a coupon to get a replacement product, but it's one, it's one coupon. They're not gonna offer to send you 50 of the same coupons for free products. It just doesn't work that way. And if you suspect that you've gotten a hold of a counterfeit or you're just not sure, look up the coupon information center in Florida. You can contact them, send 'em an image of it and Bud Miller or somebody that works there will get back with you and they can let you know if that's a valid coupon or not.
Karla Kirby:
And to just kind of reiterate for our listeners, if someone were to get something like this in the mail, they could reach out to the inspection service hotline.
Jason Thomasson:
They can, yes. They can reach out to the inspection service hotline and we can look into it. Or again, they can reach out to the CIC down in Florida and send an image of the coupon and they can verify whether it's a legitimate coupon or not.
Jonathan Castillo:
Well Jason, that we wanna thank you for joining us and taking us through this, you know, really kind of unbelievable case.
Karla Kirby:
This was definitely a riveting one.
Jason Thomasson:
Thank you for having me.
Karla Kirby:
Time for our latest Did You Know segment when Jonathan and I each share an interesting US Postal Service fact. Jonathan, what do you have for us today?
Jonathan Castillo:
When we think about symbols associated with the Postal Service, the bald eagle typically comes to mind.
Karla Kirby:
You're absolutely right. The symbol everyone sees on our trucks and uniforms today is known as the Sonic Eagle.
Jonathan Castillo:
Yes. But did you know we've been using the Eagle symbol for only a fraction of our 250 year existence. The original symbol for the Postal Service was Mercury, ancient Rome's messenger of the gods.
Karla Kirby:
I can see why that would make sense.
Jonathan Castillo:
Back in 1782, the Postmaster General at the time came up with a symbol that included Mercury on top of a globe with his right hand raised winged feet, a helmet and a staff completed the image the symbol was meant to convey to early America our commitment to the swift and secure delivery of the mail.
Karla Kirby:
So how long did we actually use that seal?
Jonathan Castillo:
Until 1837 when it was replaced by a symbol featuring a rider on a horse. A sign of the times, I guess. That's when the US was expanding westward rapidly and the Postal Service was playing a major role in keeping those remote communities connected with one another and with friends and family back east.
Karla Kirby:
I would ask if that symbol was inspired by the Pony Express, but the Pony Express didn't start for another few decades, so the symbol was actually ahead of its time.
Jonathan Castillo:
Good point. In catching up to more modern times. In 1970, the US Postal Service replaced its predecessor symbol with the bald eagle. This one was a little different from Sonic. It shows the eagle above the letters US mail ready for flight. Sonic provided a more modern look for the eagle symbol beginning in 1993.
Karla Kirby:
Very interesting. My Did You Know is about another Postal Service icon, the postage stamp. We've talked on the podcast about how the first US stamps were introduced in 1847. But did you know stamps weren't mandatory on mail until almost a decade later?
Jonathan Castillo:
So you could still mail a letter and have the person receiving the letter pay for it.
Karla Kirby:
You could, up until 1855. The Postal Service changed its approach to emphasize prepayment at the time in order to make delivery more efficient. The Postal Service was able to do that because it had standardized rates in the 1840s. Once that happened, prepaid stamps made it easier to process and deliver the mail. You didn't have to calculate rates for each letter. Not surprisingly, demand for stamps doubled over the next two years.
Jonathan Castillo:
And that wraps up this segment of Did You Know.
What an unbelievable story Inspector Thomasson took us through today.
Karla Kirby:
One of the things that really caught me, or that was a learning point for me was that there is a coupon information center that basically follows this type of fraud and allows you to send in copies of coupons or pictures of coupons to see if they're legitimate. Sometimes if it looks too good to be true, it probably is. And that's all for this episode of Mailin’ It. Don't forget to subscribe to Mailin’ It wherever you get your podcast to make sure you don't miss the next episode. And follow along on Instagram @USPostal Service at x, @usps, and on Facebook.