A U.S. Postal Service employee and four co-conspirators have been sentenced for their roles in a sophisticated scheme to steal and sell $4.5 million in U.S. Treasury and bank checks from the international mail facility at John F. Kennedy (JFK) Airport.
The fraud was uncovered through parallel investigations in May 2023. A major U.S. bank reported over 1,500 undelivered checks, totaling $700,000 in losses, to the USPS OIG and NYPD. Concurrently, NYPD arrested an off-duty postal employee, finding a loaded firearm and a $225,000 Treasury check.
The investigations, joined by the U.S. Secret Service and TIGTA, revealed the employee was a foreign receiving clerk at JFK with extensive mail access. A search of his home yielded 11 more Treasury checks, five bank checks, cash, and digital devices. Evidence on a confiscated cellphone linked him to selling stolen checks online, leading to the identification of a former Postal Service employee and three other co-conspirators.
All five defendants pleaded guilty. The clerk received five years in prison, $100,000 in forfeited assets, and joint restitution of over $400,000. The former employee was sentenced to a year in prison and forfeited almost $58,000. Two others received jail time and were ordered to pay back nearly $82,000, with the final defendant awaiting sentencing.
"The sentence imposed on the defendants will serve as a reminder that there are severe consequences when individuals commit crimes targeting the U.S Mail," said Matthew Modafferi, Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General.