Before we get started, a warning.

This episode includes a brief mention of suicide.

Please take care of while listening.

The very first modern credit card wasn't invented until the 1950s.

And in the 1980s, credit card use was growing, fast.

I want convenience. So was credit card fraud.

Looking at it from today is amateurish.

But back then, identity theft wasn't as easy as it is now.

That's David Barton.

He was a police sergeant in the White Color Crime Unit in Kansas City, Missouri in 1981.

He's the guy from the last episode who was watching the evening news

and realized Robert Richardson was actually someone else.

James Lewis.

Barton was seeing more and more credit card fraud cases come across his desk.

And to Kansas City, there was one guy who seemed to have a prolific operation.

This thief wouldn't just wait outside the victim's mailbox to swipe the card when it arrived at someone's house.

Instead, he'd apply for new cards in the target's name,

and then have those cards sent to

an address the victim had no idea about.

So it was like, okay, well, I get it.

This is how he's doing it, is they're setting these up with rural mailboxes.

Meaning they're just putting them in the ground?

...