Prada, Chanel, Dior, Celine — their day was filled with high-end retail therapy and lavish meals at upscale restaurants. To onlookers, the pair was a power couple with a penchant for luxury sparing no expense. But to investigators, they were the heart of a mail theft conspiracy that was about to be taken down in Brooklyn, NY.

Inspectors from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service had been tracking the male, who was captured on video using stolen credit cards at multiple retailers and restaurants. Our OIG special agents identified his accomplice — a mail carrier who was also seen using the stolen cards. She had worked at USPS for almost four years before she allegedly started stealing. 

After complaints from postal customers and merchants started hitting agency hotlines, investigators spread their net. Our special agents found a pattern for the missing mail that pointed them directly to the employee, but as they investigated her, they also identified two other employees who also stole credit cards from the mail, although they gave them to another man. Everyone in the group allegedly knew each other before they began stealing.

In the summer of 2023, investigators arrested the duo that began the operation and a few months later, they arrested the other two employees and their other co-conspirator. The Postal Service terminated two of the employees and the other resigned, and all five suspects eventually pleaded guilty. 

In 2025, a federal court sentenced the employee-turned-ringleader to six months of house arrest followed by two years’ probation and ordered her to pay back over $100,000. Her counterpart got two and a half years in prison and was also ordered to pay back over $100,000. The other two employees were sentenced to one and three years’ probation and were each ordered to pay back over $73,000 — one of them was also ordered to forfeit about $4,000. And the final suspect was sentenced to almost three years’ imprisonment and was ordered to forfeit about $42,000 and pay $74,000 in restitution to his victims.

If you suspect or know of mail theft involving Postal Service employees or contractors, please report it to our Hotline.