The OIG’s Fight Against Mail Theft

Mail theft is an abuse of trust in America's postal system, and every OIG employee is committed to stopping this misuse of trust by postal employees and the criminal networks that use them.

As always, our Office of Investigations has been active in this fight. In the first half of fiscal year 2026, our special agents closed more than 730 mail theft investigations, assisted in 237 mail theft convictions or pre-trial diversions, and produced more than $10 million in fines, restitutions, and recoveries to be paid to the government or mail theft victims. Read about some recent mail theft cases here.

Our Office of Audit also plays a role. Our auditors examine the programs the Postal Service and Postal Inspection Service use to deter mail theft. In 2023, we issued an audit report on the Postal Service’s Response to Mail Theft. It found while the Postal Service instituted measures to reduce mail theft (more secure collection boxes and enhanced security procedures for arrow keys), there were no timelines for broader plans to combat mail theft. There were also issues with the Postal Inspection Service’s mail theft strategy. For instance, the strategy had not been finalized, and it lacked meaningful mail theft metrics. We made seven recommendations for improvements.

This May, we issued a follow-up report taking a second look at these issues. How are things going now?

The good news is that overall Postal Service and Postal Inspection Service management made changes in response to our 2023 recommendations. The Postal Inspection Service finalized its mail theft strategy and established standard operating procedures that described the Mail Theft Analytics Program’s purpose and metrics. The Postal Service also installed more than 23,000 high-security collection boxes and 47,000 electronic locks with tens of thousands more planned. 

Some issues remained though. Delivery units were still having problems keeping arrow keys secure and reporting missing keys, and the training system did not always assign required arrow key training to supervisors and managers. In addition, we found blue collection boxes and green relay boxes, which are used to store mail for carriers walking their routes, were sometimes in poor condition — some even had holes in them. This puts mail at risk even if the boxes have electronic locks. We made more recommendations to fix these problems.

Following up on a previous audit to discover what is working and what still needs to be done can help fix a persistent problem area. Are there any other past audit reports that you would like to see the OIG follow up? Let us know in the comments below.