PUSHING THE ENVELOPE BLOG

The Postal Service Office of Inspector General (OIG) has a mission to guard against fraud, waste, and abuse. We are one of the most active OIGs, with nearly 2,200 arrests over the past five years. In this month’s blog, we focus on our fraud investigations. The total financial impact of our fraud investigations was almost $350 million in fiscal year 2024, with more than $25 million returned directly to the Postal Service.

The OIG has a long history of auditing individual mail delivery units and processing plants in the field, though these audits were conducted independently of each other. In November 2021, we rolled out our Field Operations Review Team (FORT) to provide a faster and more comprehensive evaluation of local service issues. These field audits do not just look at problems at a single facility, they review several facilities to also look for interrelated issues affecting performance.

It is January, so that means it’s time once again for our annual list of the top 10 postal stories (2024 edition).

Every six months, as required by the IG Act, we publish our Semiannual Report to Congress, or SARC. It’s our way of reporting what we’ve accomplished across the agency. Our latest SARC, covering the period from April 1 through September 30, spotlights the extraordinary work our employees have performed across key areas: mail theft, narcotics, the Postal Service’s Delivering for America plan, electric vehicles, and Election Mail.

What would you do if someone asked you to steal something from the mail for a quick buck? Most Postal Service employees wouldn’t dream of it. But once in a while, someone is tempted. Then, they find out the hard way that colluding wasn’t worth the risk to their finances or their freedom.