Residents of three apartment complexes in Makiki are concerned about possible identity theft after someone broke into their mailboxes earlier this month.

The thief was able to get to dozens of mailboxes at once by opening the access panel to banks of mailboxes, police said.

The thefts happened in the same time frame at three apartment building in the 1000 block of Kina'u Street.

A security camera caught a man in his 20s breaking into 70 mailboxes at AOAO 1040 Kina'u St. between 10:15 p.m. on June 3 and 5:45 a.m. on June 4.

Police believe the same man broke into mailboxes at 1043 Kina'u St. and 1073 Kina'u St., which house 47 and 15 mailboxes, respectively, in the same time frame. Mailboxes at all three complexes are outside the secured entryways.

Honolulu Crimestoppers spokeswoman Sgt. Kim Buffet said police and postal officials are urging residents to file police reports and to monitor their credit reports and bank accounts for possible ID theft.

"He's caught on tape looking around before he uses some sort of tool to open all the mailboxes at once like the carriers do," Buffet said yesterday. "Given the timing, we think he may be responsible for all three thefts."

Lynn Strong, who has lived with her husband at the 1043 Kina'u St. complex since 1973, said the thief may have been after federal economic stimulus checks, which are being mailed to taxpayers.

"The timing of it makes me think so," Strong said. "The boxes were broken into the day I was supposed to get my check so I was worried when I found out our mail was broken into.

"I did get it a few days later so I was lucky it was late. But I really don't know what else he was looking for. I had other mail in there that he didn't take."

Derek Chu, resident manager of AOAO 1040 Kina'u St., said his association is looking at upgrading its security system and also moving the mailboxes into the secured lobby because of the security breach.

"I've only had one tenant express worry about what could have been stolen so far," Chu said. "He may have been looking for something specific, I don't know. I know fingerprints were taken and he's on video. I don't think he noticed the camera because he was in a hurry to get out of there."

Janet L. Quach, who has lived with her husband at 1073 Kina'u St. the past 20 years, said her resident manager is urging tenants to monitor their credit and bank accounts. The U.S. Postal Inspection Service sent notification letters to all residents, asking them to monitor their bank and credit accounts.

"So far nothing has happened yet or is missing," Quach said. "We picked up our mail at 2:30 that day, so I think we're OK, but there are residents who work overnight and couldn't check their mail. They have to be careful."

U.S. Postal carrier Steven Chun was back to delivering mail to all three complexes yesterday. All three complexes have been on Chun's postal route the past four years, he said.

"This is the first time anything like that's happened," Chun said. "It may have been about stimulus checks, given the timing. I don't know. It's tough to tell what he was looking for."

Chun said mail service to all three was stopped for a week because of the security breach but resumed at the customers' request.

Anyone with information on the thefts is asked to call CrimeStoppers at 955-8300, or *CRIME on a cell phone. Free cell calls are provided by AT&T, Nextel Hawaii, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless Hawaii.

CrimeStoppers will pay a cash reward of up to $1,000 for information that leads to an arrest.