Investigative Case Highlights

A single complaint to our Hotline began the unravelling: A postal customer in Bethesda, MD, had been expecting a new credit card, only it never arrived. Instead, the card was used in an attempt to withdraw $700 in cash from an ATM in the area. Our special agents took it from there. Expert investigators don’t take isolated complaints at face value — sometimes they’re symptoms of a more complex...

If you keep up with our Investigative Case Highlights , you know people who defraud the workers’ compensation program go out of their way to keep their schemes secret. We previously wrote about a case where a postal employee milked an alleged ankle injury for over 14 years while gainfully employed, and another where our special agents caught an employee dancing the night away while claiming an...

By the time her boyfriend planted the idea, she’d worked at the Postal Service long enough to know exactly what envelopes to look for. She showed up to work each day playing the part so well, no one suspected a thing. But in just a few months, she managed to steal more than $24 million in checks, making this the largest mail theft conspiracy in the history of the Western District of North Carolina...

Imagine someone starts a job and less than two months later jumps on a gravy train to ride out a supposed ankle injury on the Postal Service's dime. That’s what one Postal Service employee in Ohio did recently, and it’s one of the reasons the USPS OIG’s work to prevent fraud, waste, and abuse is as vital as ever. A woman joined the Postal Service in June 2020 as a tractor trailer operator, and 54...

If you’re into luxury goods, you probably take the trouble to make sure the items you buy aren’t stolen or counterfeit — most retail websites have disclaimers to that effect to give prospective buyers more confidence. Barring theft or dubious origins, how would you feel if the items you bought were acquired with stolen funds?