Investigative Case Highlights

When describing our investigative work, we often say the overwhelming majority of postal employees work conscientiously to deliver the nation’s mail, but sometimes a few bad apples abuse the public’s trust in the Postal Service. What about the really good apples — those who deter postal crimes? We thought sharing such a story would be a great way to kick off the New Year.

Security personnel would have thought nothing of it and, in fact, they didn’t at the time: Two siblings were captured by security cameras making over $5,000 in purchases at their local Nordstrom. Security footage also showed a third man spending over $1,000 at an Apple store. They were good days for the local merchants, yet these shopping sprees were anything but normal for the actual account...

­He was on the run from the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Taskforce, suspected of murder. Newark Police closed in and arrested him that day. With him was a New Jersey USPS city carrier. Was she simply in the wrong place at the wrong time? Not based on what police found during the arrest: a trove of stolen mail, fake IDs, and a Glock 43 with a 60-round extended magazine. That’s when our special agents...

The U.S. Postal Service seeks to hire honest, hardworking people, but sometimes a few bad apples manage to find their way in. When you consider the vast workforce that is the Postal Service (over 635,000 employees as of 2022), it becomes apparent that cases where postal employees commit crimes are few. Even rarer are cases where they collude with each other to defraud USPS and its customers.

We’ve all heard stories of drug addicts stealing from friends and family to support their addiction. However, this is a case of one postal worker stealing from his customers to support his fentanyl addiction. In January 2022, we received a hotline tip that six cash vault packages for Verizon were missing. The tracking numbers to the Verizon Priority Mail parcels the deposits were in corresponded...