New steps are being taken by the Lynbrook Post Office following a string of mailbox robberies.

Police say criminals have stolen checks and other items from mailboxes around the village.

Steve Wepp, a manager at Celebrity Chase Collision in Lynbrook, was among those who recently learned that thieves stole his mail out of a mailbox.

He says someone stole five of his companies' checks, chemically removed the ink, re-wrote the dollar amount and then cashed them.

“The bookkeeper went over the books and found out that, ‘Hey, we never wrote out these checks for double the amount,’” Wepp says.

Lynbrook Police Chief Brian Paladino says it's happening all over the Island. In his 2-square mile village, Paladino says there have been at least 36 cases since last May of checks being stolen from mailboxes and re-written.

Lynbrook police says two have been arrested in connection to some of the mail thefts.

“I'd go over the case reports every week, and we just saw this epidemic happening,” Paladino says.

In response to the mail thefts, the U.S. Postal Service has now begun installing newer mailboxes that feature a narrow slot, which makes it harder to pull the mail back out.

“I’m warning every body to use the new mailbox styles until the Postal Service can change this,” Paladino says.

A spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service says they work with law enforcement to identify boxes that have been targeted and replace those first with the newer ones. However, he added that there is a delay in the rollout of all the new mailboxes due to manufacturing issues with the security features of the boxes.