HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — When Jimmie Blackstone signed up with a new internet provider, he said he was offered a $100 Visa gift card as a bonus.
After it didn’t show up, he said he contacted the company, who told him it was used at a nearby restaurant that he’s never been to.
Blackstone said he doesn’t know for certain who stole his gift card, but he said since his mail sometimes arrives from the U.S. Postal Service already opened and at odd times, he suspects it could have been one of their workers.
“I absolutely think it was an internal job at the postal service because … after checking our mailbox twice a day, we were getting extra mail in the middle of the night, so I thought that was very odd,” Blackstone said. “After I filed the complaint, shortly after that, we stopped getting mail in the middle of the night.”
All year,13 Investigates has asked USPS for interviews about viewer concerns about internal mail theft and what the government agency is doing to ensure your mail is safe.
USPS wouldn’t respond to all of our questions, and we wanted to know just how many employees are mismanaging your mail so our investigative team started sending federal records requests for those details.
USPS’ Office of Inspector General is tasked with investigating when employees break the law.
13 Investigates found from January 2023 through June 2024, the USPS OIG has made 602 arrests nationwide for mail theft. USPS OIG says “most of our mail theft cases involve employee arrests.”
Now, after obtaining hundreds of pages of internal investigative files over the past five years, we’re learning where tens of thousands of pieces of mismanaged mail in the Houston area ended up.
In June, an Humble postal worker “admitted to delaying and discarding mail on multiple occasions,” according to an OIG investigation. Investigators say mail was found in personal trash cans inside the worker’s home.
In another case, the OIG initiated an investigation into mail theft in January 2022 after complaints from customers sending greeting and gift cards.
The investigation found a postal worker at the North Houston Processing and Distribution Center admitted that “she was stealing from the mail and targeted cash and gift cards.”
The employee said “she began stealing about a month or two after being hired in 2021” and the OIG’s investigation concluded her actions likely impacted more than 1,000 customers.
The worker was allowed to resign from USPS the next day. Last year, that employee was sentenced to three years of probation after pleading guilty to one count of delay or destruction of mail by a postal employee and one count of theft of mail by a postal employee.
SEE ALSO: 13 Investigates: Is mail being stolen inside a major Houston USPS facility?
Frank Albergo, president of the Postal Police Officers Association, said what’s happening at USPS is a “disaster.”
“I hate to say this, but right now there are pockets within America where the mail is unsafe. It’s being stolen. It’s being ransacked. It’s being sold on the dark web. I mean, it’s completely out of control,” Albergo said. “As a postal service employee, it’s sad to see. I mean, this is something that you’re proud of. You’re proud of the postal service. It’s one of the most beloved federal institutions and right now it’s under attack. It’s under attack by criminals. Criminals are infiltrating the postal service.”
The documents we obtained from the USPS OIG also show a Tomball carrier who was found with 1,882 pieces of mail inside his personal vehicle and about 2,000 pieces of mail inside his residence in 2021.
One year earlier, in 2020, a carrier assigned to the Fleetwood Postal Station in west Houston was found with about 10,000 pieces of mail in his residence and vehicles.
During a search of the postal carrier’s home, investigators found “a 64-gallon trash container filled to the top with mail” that was mostly torn, according to the OIG’s report. Mail was also found in his living room, dining room and backyard shed.
SEE ALSO: 13 Investigates: Postal union says packages at risk as 600 USPS workers robbed last year
Blackstone said residents need to be able to count on the postal service, but that he’s lost confidence in it.
“I’ve had mail opened on the end where it looks like they got their finger in the end to open it enough where they can look in it, and mostly it’s stuff that looks like it’s personal, handwritten type-stuff or something from a bank,” he said. “I have had certain pieces of mail that were completely opened up.”
When 13 Investigates asked USPS OIG about Blackstone’s case, they told us, “We take mail theft very seriously. A core function of our work is the prevention and investigation of internal mail theft through our audits and investigations. We continue to focus on postal employees who steal from the mail, with a growing emphasis on external criminal organizations that target, recruit, and collude with them to steal valuables items like checks and credit cards.”
For updates on this story, follow Kevin Ozebek on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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