A suspect who is accused of stealing thousands of pieces of mail and other property at residences stretching from Hollywood to the Wilshire area was arrested on Oct. 22.

Adam Duke

The suspect, Adam Quentin Duke, 35, of Hollywood, has initially been charged with two counts of burglary, one count of receiving stolen property, five counts of identity theft, and two counts of counterfeiting. Investigators allege that Duke obtained sensitive information on numerous people by stealing their mail, and later used it to steal their identities and commit fraud.

Det. Dara Brown, of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Wilshire Division, said the main break in the case came from a resident who had mail stolen from her residence in Hancock Park, going back to the beginning of the year. In April, the resident set up a surveillance camera. Also in April, a storage locker at a facility in West Los Angeles belonging to the victim was burglarized, and the suspect was captured on surveillance video. The victim reported the mail thefts and the burglary to police, but officers had no way of identifying the man seen on the video.

That was until Oct. 11, however, when the suspect attempted to change a magazine subscription in the victim’s name to his name and address. The magazine was published by the California Historical So-ciety, an organization for which the victim was a member of the Board of Trustees. When the suspect attempted to change the subscription, representatives of the historical society directly contacted the victim to inquire about the change. The victim obtained the new address and gave it to detectives, who paid the victim a visit at his residence on Franklin Avenue on Oct. 22.

“We had seen him on video of the thefts, and I recognized him immediately,” Brown said. “We asked him to come outside and we took him into custody.”

Brown said the suspect refused to discuss the case, and investigators obtained a search warrant for his residence. Inside, they found more than 2,000 pieces of mail believed to have been stolen from residences in Hollywood, West Hollywood and the Wilshire community. They also found approximately 250 fraudulent credit cards in different people’s accounts but bearing Duke’s name, as well as 25 fake identification cards. Approximately five of the IDs were in other people’s names, but had Duke’s photograph.

“He was very prolific,” Brown added. “It looks like this was going on for a while. He had file folders with the different victims’ last and first name, along with their social security numbers. He had checkbooks, driver’s licenses, and other people’s license plates. There was one victim where he had all of their tax documents, and an ID with that victim’s name. There were nine boxes of mail, with over 2,000 pieces of mail.”

Brown said Duke, who is unemployed, was likely driving around neighborhoods looking for an opportunity to steal people’s mail or commit burglaries. He is alleged to have committed at least one burglary at an undisclosed location on Sweetzer Avenue, which resulted in one of the burglary charges. He has also been charged with burglarizing the Hancock Park victim’s storage unit. Brown said in that burglary, the suspect allegedly obtained a fake ID in the victim’s deceased husband’s name, and used it to gain entry to the storage locker.

“I’m sure he is an opportunist. He was looking for easy targets,” Brown said.

The detective said she is coordinating with the LAPD’s Commercial Crimes Unit on the case, and also plans to coordinate with investigators at the West Hollywood Sheriff’s Station to determine where other thefts occurred.

“It’s going to take some time to go through all of the stuff,” Brown said. “Just itemizing the credit cards took a day.”

She added that investigators found pipes used to smoke methamphetamine when they served the search warrant, and authorities believe the suspect may have been committing the crimes to support a drug habit. The investigator said she was thankful for the surveillance camera footage provided by the victim in Hancock Park, and added that it was purely a coincidence that the suspect decided to order the magazine subscription that led to his identification.

Duke is currently being held in custody on $200,000 bail. Brown said a judge has also required that the suspect show proof that any money used for bail was not fraudulently obtained.

Anyone with information is asked to call burglary detectives at the LAPD’s Wilshire Division at (213)922-8205.