PORTLAND, Maine — The U.S. Postal Service is replacing tens of thousands of antiquated keys used by postal carriers and installing thousands of high-security collection boxes to stop a surge in robberies and mail thefts, officials said Friday.
The Postal Service is replacing 49,000 so-called arrow locks with electronic versions to make them less attractive to criminals who have been targeting them to steal mail from secure receptacles, and it is placing 12,000 hardened blue collection boxes in high-risk areas, according to the Postal Service and Postal Inspection Service.
The announcement came days after the National Association of Letter Carriers expressed outrage as The Associated Press reported that nearly 500 postal carriers were robbed last year.
A letter carrier is bundled up in winter clothing while making afternoon deliveries during a cold weather snap Feb. 3 in Portsmouth, N.H.
“We’re doubling down on our efforts to protect our postal employees and the security of the mail. We are hardening targets — both physical and digital — to make them less desirable to thieves and working with our law enforcement partners to bring perpetrators to justice,” Postal Inspection Service Chief Gary Barksdale said Friday in a statement.
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The spike in postal carrier robberies has put letter carriers on edge.
The robberies have more than quadrupled over a decade, and weapons were used in most of the 496 robberies last year, according to data provided by the Postal Inspection Service to the AP under the Freedom of Information Act. Thirty-one postal carriers were injured, and one of them was killed last year, according to the data.
On Thursday, federal officials announced two more people were charged on allegations of pulling a letter carrier off a home’s front steps while stealing an arrow key and using a knife to rob another carrier last year in Massachusetts.
The Postal Service declined to say how many arrow keys are in use with the nation’s nearly 250,000 letter carriers.
But efforts by criminals to intercept the mail go beyond robberies to steal those keys. The Postal Service said also there were 38,500 thefts of mail from blue collection boxes in the 2022 fiscal year.
Criminals are targeting the mail, often in an organized fashion, to commit financial crimes, including altering checks to commit check fraud, officials said, but there are steep federal penalties for doing so.
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said the carriers who deliver 162.1 million pieces of first-class mail each day should be able to work “in safety and to be free from targeting by criminals seeking to access the public’s mail.”
Mail theft carries a penalty of up to five years in prison. Possession, concealment or disposal of property carries a sentence of as many as 10 years in prison. Assault carries a sentence of up to 10 years for a first offense, and up to 25 years for any subsequent offense, officials said. Federal prosecutors can also bring other charges, as well.
A postal worker empties a box near the Fiserv Forum on Aug. 18, 2020, in Milwaukee. The U.S. Postal Service is replacing tens of thousands of antiquated keys used by postal carriers and installing thousands of high-security collection boxes to stop a surge in robberies and mail thefts.
Postal officials are cracking down on other ways criminals are targeting the service.
The service began implementing dual authentication for identity verification online for changes in address last month, and is starting enhanced in-person change-of-address transactions by month’s end to prevent criminals from using change-of-address protocols for identity theft to intercept credit cards, checks and other financial mail. The Postal Service is no longer accepting third-party change-of-address submissions.
The service is also tackling counterfeit postage. It will exercise new authority to take possession and dispose of packages with counterfeit postage and to shut down websites selling counterfeit postage, officials said.
Postal officials seized more than 340,000 packages with counterfeit postage and more than 7.7 million counterfeit stamps, preventing the loss of an estimated $7.8 million in postal revenue, in the last fiscal year, officials said.
14 fun facts about your mail
1. Benjamin Franklin was the first postmaster general in U.S. history
Before 1971, the postmaster general was a member of the president’s Cabinet.
2. The Postal Service processed and delivered 425.3 million pieces of mail per day in 2021.
3. There are more than 139,868 blue mail collection boxes in the U.S.
4. There are 31,247 Postal Service-managed retail offices.
5. The U.S. Postal Inspection Service is the law enforcement arm of USPS.
In 2021, inspectors carried out 5,141 arrests and 3,784 convictions for postal crimes, including mail theft and mail fraud.
6. The U.S. Postal Service has no official motto.
The quote often thought to be its motto — "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds" — is inscribed on the James A. Farley Post Office in New York City and comes from the ancient Persian historian Herodotus.
7. USPS generally receives no tax dollars, and funds itself through the sale of postage and other services.
8. Contrary to popular belief, the Pony Express was never officially a part of the U.S. Postal Service.
The official name of the Pony Express was the Overland Express Route.
9. The Breast Cancer Research semipostal stamp has raised more than $93.9 million for breast cancer research since 1998.
More than 1.09 billion stamps have been sold.
10. The Alzheimer’s semipostal has raised more than $1.2 million since 2017.
11. The Save Vanishing Species semipostal has raised more than $6.6 million since 2011.
More than 59.2 million Save Vanishing Species stamps have been sold.
12. The United Kingdom’s iconic red mail collection boxes are called pillar boxes.
After the 2012 London Olympics, pillar boxes in the hometowns of gold medalists were painted gold.
13. The United Nations has an agency called the Universal Postal Union that coordinates postal policy internationally.
14. If it were a private sector company, the Postal Service would rank 43rd in the 2021 Fortune 500.
In the 2021 Global Fortune 500 list, it ranked 123rd.
