NYC Gazette

New York, NY – Congressman Dan Goldman (NY-10) this month cosponsored the USPS Subpoena Authority Act to enhance the U.S. Postal Service’s (USPS) ability to crack down on postal crime following a rise in stolen checks from neighborhood post offices and mailboxes.

Specifically, the USPS Subpoena Authority Act would strengthen USPS' ability to crack down on criminal organizations driving mail theft through administrative subpoenas. With these subpoenas, USPS could collect more information related to the financial fraud associated with mail theft, including bank records and surveillance videos, to build mail theft cases against criminal organizations that meet prosecutorial thresholds.

“The rise in mail theft in my district and across the city has left New Yorkers rightly concerned that their vital documentation could be at serious risk,” Congressman Dan Goldman said. “Following the letter my office sent to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy bringing this unacceptable this issue to his attention, this critical piece of legislation will equip the USPS with the tools it needs to crack down on the rise in mail theft. My office and I will continue to pursue every avenue of action available to us to address this issue.”

According to a February 2023 alert from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, an arm of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, reports of check fraud filed by banks nearly doubled to 680,000 from 350,000 in 2021. The U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) said it received more than 299,000 complaints of mail theft from March 2020 through February 2021, a 161 percent increase compared with the same period a year earlier.

Mail theft and check fraud cases have also increased in New York. In September 2022, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and USPIS arrested nine individuals, some of whom were postal employees, in connection with a years-long $1.3 million scheme to steal credit cards from the mail and use them to defraud several national financial institutions, credit card companies and major retailers.

In January 2023, New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez and USPIS announced the arrest of Gennady Galker, an identity thief who stole more than $30,000 in checks from Brooklynites, including the Office of Unclaimed Funds and the Jewish Communal Fund. Galker's arrest coincided with the sentencing of a former East Flatbush postal worker who was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison for stealing $4 million in blank money orders from the Rugby Post Office on Utica Avenue.

Earlier this month, Goldman sent a letter to United States Postal Service Postmaster General Louis DeJoy urging him to address the rise in mail theft from USPS mailboxes in New York City. 

Original source can be found here.