A stunning report by federal investigators outlines how employees steal mail.© Tom Fox/The Dallas Morning News/TNS
DALLAS — One of the biggest threats to the United State Postal Service is not the ever-growing cost of stamps, long lines at the post office or even delayed mail.
The biggest threats to USPS may be the mail handlers themselves.
Auditors found that a tiny percentage of them steal. And they steal a lot, according to a stunning federal investigation of a dozen mail sorting facilities across the U.S.
In mid-December, federal prosecutors charged two postal workers with stealing more than $1 million in business checks. The two worked at postal facilities in Virginia and North Carolina.
But that’s not the whole mail bag on the matter. In a stunning finding by the USPS Office of Inspector General, I.G. Tammy L. Hull writes that “criminal organizations are targeting, recruiting and colluding with postal employees to move narcotics through the postal network and to steal checks – both personal and government-issued checks — credit cards and other valuables from the mail.”
‘Shocking to everyone’
Frank Albergo, president of the Postal Police Officers Association, told Norfolk TV news station WTKR that postal workers aren’t “getting a job because they want to deliver the mail or they want to sort mail. They’re getting a job to steal mail.”
He added, “Criminal organizations are recruiting postal workers to infiltrate the postal service. That should be shocking to everyone.”
No Texas facilities were targeted in the year-long audit of the dozen plants.
However, a Houston plant is undergoing a similar probe with the results to be announced in the spring, says Tara Linne, spokesperson for the USPS Inspector General.
USPS spokesperson David Walton told The Watchdog, “We have no additional comment” aside from management response to the investigation.
The auditors suggested a series of improvements including more training of employees, stronger national policy banning personal items from inside the facilities and updating some 18,619 cameras in plants throughout the nation. Many of them no longer work.
How do they steal?
It’s not that hard when you bring bags, backpacks, coats and jackets onto the plant floor. Mail can be transferred from a box to a jacket. With poor training the risk of getting caught is small.
A Milwaukee mail clerk under surveillance looked in trays for greeting cards that contained gift cards. The clerk moved them to another tray during their shift, and then placed all the mail in a backpack.
The clerk was fired, prosecuted and found guilty, the report said. The clerk was given two years probation and ordered to pay $1,600.
In St. Louis, a mail handler stole 55 out of 150 packages out of a truck. The mail handlers helped each other as lookouts while stolen items were stashed in their jackets and backpacks.
Seven workers either resigned or were fired. One was sentenced to three months in a federal prison.
Solutions are not as easy as they sound. Most facilities don’t provide lockers for workers. Plus, workers go in and out to get mail out of trucks. They need their jackets on cold days.
Reputation at stake
This is a difficult problem to solve. “Employee mail theft damages the Postal Service’s reputation and diminishes public trust in the nation’s mail system,” the report warns.
This reminds me of the classic horror movie line:
“The call is coming from inside the house.”