House Oversight subcommittee presses USPS on surge in mail theft, safety of letter carriers

At a House Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Government Operations hearing, lawmakers and witnesses pressed Postal Service officials and independent oversight bodies on a surge in mail theft, violent attacks on letter carriers and the pace of federal and local responses.

The hearing centered on the Postal Inspection Service's national anti-theft strategy, Project Safe Delivery, oversight findings from the Postal Service Office of Inspector General (OIG) and the Government Accountability Office (GAO), and legislative proposals to change enforcement authority and fund modernization.

Why it matters: mail theft and robberies of letter carriers have direct effects on people who depend on mail for medication, checks, ballots and other essential items, and on the safety of the workers who deliver them. Committee members said the trend has eroded public trust in the mail system and called for faster operational fixes and clearer enforcement authority.

Inspector in charge Brendan Donahue described the Inspection Service's response since Project Safe Delivery launched on May 12, 2023. Donahue said the agency has installed more than 23,000 high-security blue collection boxes and planned an additional 16,000, replaced more than 42,000 arrow locks with electronic locks with another 55,000 planned, and increased enforcement activity. He reported roughly 419 arrests for letter carrier robberies and more than 2,700 arrests for mail-theft-related crimes, 16 enforcement surge operations in 10 cities leading to 68 arrests, and more than 1,000 investigative actions. Donahue said the Inspection Service has hired 10 special assistant U.S. attorneys to prosecute postal crimes and raised reward amounts for information leading to arrests to as much as $150,000 for robberies.

Donahue also said Project Safe Delivery has produced measurable declines: a 27% decrease in letter carrier robberies in the last fiscal year and an on-track 32% reduction this fiscal year, plus a 20% drop in mail-theft complaints last fiscal year and an expected 4% drop this fiscal year. He told the committee the Inspection Service still needs help on prosecution, sentencing and investigative tools.

Julius Rothstein, deputy inspector general for the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General, described how OIG investigations and data analytics have tracked large theft networks and identified financial losses. Rothstein said an analytics tool developed with the Treasury Department and financial institutions helped identify about $250 million in stolen financial instruments, opening roughly 75 investigations and yielding more than 35 indictments. He said investigators have documented schemes that involved postal employees and outside criminal groups using encrypted messaging apps to traffic stolen checks and cards; in one case cited by the OIG, conspirators stole more than $17 million from 1,600 victims.

Brian Renfroe, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, urged immediate legislative action and cited violent attacks on carriers. "We cannot wait for another letter carrier to be murdered," Renfroe said, advocating for the bipartisan Protect Our Letter Carriers Act, which he described as a comprehensive package to deter crime and hold offenders accountable.

A second line of testimony came from Frank Albarago, president of the Postal Police Officers Association, who sharply criticized recent Postal Inspection Service policies that he said reduced the uniformed postal police presence. "We are not talking about abstract policy failures. We are talking about immeasurable collapse in institutional responsibility happening in real time with real victims," Albarago testified. He urged Congress to pass HR 2095, the Postal Police Reform Act (named in testimony), a bipartisan measure he said would restore postal police authority to patrol high-risk areas beyond postal property.

Local partnerships were highlighted as a force multiplier. Anthony Holloway, chief of police for the St. Petersburg (Florida) Police Department, described a task-force partnership with the Postal Inspection Service that assigned a detective to the Tampa Bay financial-crime task force; Holloway said the partnership corresponded with roughly a 50% decline in reported check-fraud cases in his jurisdiction (from 256 cases in June 2023'June 2024 to 134 cases in the subsequent year) and produced federal arrests related to election-mail theft.

Members questioned the Inspection Service about cooperation with other federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Ranking Member Mfume pressed Inspector Donahue about reported participation by USPIS personnel in a multiagency April operation that detained immigrants; Donahue said the Postal Inspection Service does not conduct immigration enforcement and that USPIS only participates in joint operations when the postal crime (for example, narcotics trafficking or money laundering through the mail) warrants it. Donahue said the agency would provide written follow-up on how many USPIS officers were assigned to such joint cases.

Committee members also pressed witnesses on specific prevention steps available to the public. Donahue and the OIG recommended customers use the Postal Service's Informed Delivery service to monitor expected mail, pick up delivered mail promptly, bring important mail to post offices or hand it to carriers for secure acceptance, and report damaged cluster-box units or collection boxes so they can be repaired or hardened.

Several witnesses and members emphasized gaps in staffing, authority and data. The GAO's 2024 report, discussed at the hearing, found the Inspection Service lacked documented processes for determining law-enforcement staffing needs; OIG witnesses and members asked for workforce assessments and more timely information on implementation of Project Safe Delivery measures.

No final votes or enforcement actions were taken at the hearing. Chairman Sessions closed by offering the committee's continued oversight; members were given five legislative days to submit additional material and written questions to the witnesses.

Ending: The hearing produced public metrics on progress under Project Safe Delivery, examples of local task-force successes and competing proposals for strengthening uniformed enforcement. Members requested written follow-ups on staffing and joint operations and signaled possible legislation to fund modernization and clarify postal police authority.