Investigative Case Highlights

A notification goes off on your phone flagging a $680 purchase you didn’t make. Stranger still is the credit card used was supposed to arrive in the mail a few days ago but never did. What do you do? One postal customer in Delaware filed a complaint with our Hotline when it happened to him. Our special agents quickly opened an investigation and, having connected with the Smyrna Police Department, found there were similar complaints from other postal customers in the area. And it wasn’t just...

Tap. Swipe. Beep. If you were standing right there, eyeing the registers, none of the ebbs and flows of customers buying luxury goods would seem unusual: high-end jewelry, designer handbags and shoes, the latest couture. But on the other side of security cameras, trained eyes were watching.

In the small world of mail theft involving postal employees, joint criminal operations typically see the longest and harshest sentences. However, a recent case our special agents cracked broke the mold for a one-person job. In September 2022, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service provided a lead to our Office of Investigations about suspected check thefts at a post office in Arkansas. The case had started in June after a USPS arrow key that opened...

You may have noticed more news stories about mail theft happening around the country — unfortunate but true: even the U.S. Treasury recently warned about a nationwide surge in mail theft-related check fraud schemes targeting the U.S. Mail. Inside the Postal Service, the incidence of mail theft by employees shies by comparison, but it happens. Two recently closed investigations in New York and New Jersey illustrate the point. In 2017, U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) investigated unknown

They say opportunities can entice someone to become a thief. For postal employees, such opportunities often come from those outside the Postal Service. They bait employees with promises of quick, easy cash, assuring them it’s all minimal risk. But two separate investigations in New York State illustrate how much postal employees stand to lose if they conspire to steal from the U.S. Mail.