How a Single Point of Compromise Hurt Thousands of USPS Customers Across the Country

A mail carrier tried bankrolling his drug addiction by stealing mail, but by the time he wanted out of the wrong crowd he’d gotten into, it was too late. The case was complex enough that it took seven law enforcement agencies and two of our investigative field offices to bring the operation down.

It started in early 2023, when the U.S. Postal Inspection Service found over $100,000 in checks were washed, altered, and cashed in central Pennsylvania. Initially, investigators thought mail thieves were stealing out of USPS’s blue collection boxes, but their partners at the Waynesboro Police Department made an unusual connection: the suspects were a known drug trafficking ring and were allegedly colluding with a mail carrier who worked at two post offices in the area. That’s when they called our special agents in.

Our special agents found the employee had been targeting mail containing checks and other personal identifying information, which he gave to the ringleader and some of his co-conspirators.

The ringleader, who is affiliated with a known NYC street gang, was crafty: he would falsify IDs or travel to New York City to buy fake IDs for his “runners” to use back home to fraudulently cash the checks. He also sold some of the personal identifying information to online buyers through criminal marketplaces.

The revolving door of actors and fake IDs threw law enforcement off the scent, but when the agencies joined forces, there was no stopping the takedown.

What is personal identifying information or PII?

It's s highly sensitive data that, if exposed or misused, can lead to identity theft, fraud, and other serious consequences. Examples of PII include someone’s:

Full name
Social Security number
Date of birth
Mailing or email address
Phone number
Bank account or credit card numbers
Driver’s license or passport numbers

Read the U.S. Inspection Service’s tips on how to protect your PII here.

Investigators identified eight suspects, including the ringleader and the employee, and a wave of arrests followed shortly after: Special agents from our Mid-Atlantic Field Office arrested the employee and helped investigators apprehend other co-conspirators in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania State Police and Franklin County Drug Task Force agents had to again arrest the employee after he bailed on his sentencing hearing. Meanwhile, our special agents from our Northeastern Field Office worked with the Waynesboro and New York police departments to arrest the ringleader while he was in New York City on one of his visits.

However, after serving time for his violations in The Big Apple, the State of New York released the ringleader even though Waynesboro PD had a detainer on him. He then traveled to Florida and committed passport fraud there, pulling in yet another federal agency into the case: the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS). Eventually, local law enforcement in Tennessee caught up with the fugitive and arrested him on the outstanding warrant, with the DSS arresting him federally shortly thereafter.

Back in Pennsylvania, when our special agents interviewed the employee, he confessed to stealing several hundred pieces of mail, many of them containing checks. This ultimately hurt thousands of postal customers across the country. He also confessed to stealing about 300 Postal Money Orders, which he provided to the ringleader.

All this had been orchestrated by the ringleader — he knew how valuable the postal system is and targeted the employee to gain access, promising cocaine in return for his services. The employee soon feared for his life, facing the difficult choice to sink deeper into a life of crime, or come clean and risk the wrath of his co-conspirators.

Thanks to the inter-agency investigation, all eight suspects were brought to justice. The postal employee was sentenced to a year and a half in prison and was ordered to return almost $123,000 to the Postal Service — the total estimated losses in Postal Money Orders. The State of Pennsylvania dealt with the other six suspects, and the ringleader was sentenced to nine and a half years in prison and was ordered to pay $7,600 in restitution to several financial institutions.

If you suspect or know of mail theft involving Postal Service employees or contractors, please report it to our Hotline. And if you or someone you know is suffering from a substance use disorder, there are resources that can help, such as FindTreatment.gov.