White-Collar Crime - Mail Crime

The USPIS investigates a number of crimes involving the nation's mail, including mail fraud, mail theft, and the mailing of controlled substances. Between the years 1981 and 2002, arrests for mail fraud rose from 1,100 to 1,634 respectively, an increase of about 48.5 percent. The peak arrests for mail fraud (1,965) occurred in 1993. In 2002 the USPIS was also responsible for 5,858 arrests for mail theft, which includes the theft or possession of stolen mail, down from 6,364 arrests in 2001. The mailing of controlled substances such as narcotics, steroids, and drug paraphernalia accounted for 1,385 arrests by the USPIS in 2002, down from 1,662 arrests in 2001. Other crimes investigated by the USPIS in 2002 included the use of counterfeit postage, money orders, child exploitation (child pornography), and the mailing of obscene matter and sexually oriented advertisements.

Mail fraud can involve a number of different crimes against businesses, consumers, and government in which the U.S. mail system has been used. During 2002 the USPIS arrested the chief financial officer of a Minnesota company who embezzled over $14 million by approving checks to brokerage accounts he secretly controlled and using company money to buy merchandise he later resold for his own profit. In a fraud that took in $60 million, a Massachusetts firm offered to help novice inventors develop and market their ideas, charging rates of $4,000 to $12,000 for the service. Some 34,000 people were taken in by the scheme. The company head was arrested by the USPIS and sentenced to eight years in prison. In a fraud aimed at the government of New York, two owners of a construction company were charged with fraudulently obtaining $40 million by misleading the state's minority business enterprise program about the true owners of subcontractor companies.