The U.S. Postal Service has pledged to take tough action to combat the growing theft of Americans’ mail – since checks And packages to sensitive information that identity thieves to really want to.
But even if mail theft skyrocketed from fewer than 60,000 complaints in 2018 to more than 250,000 in 2023, a CBS News investigation found that the Postal Service is not systematically taking steps to secure the millions of universal “arrow keys” that open mailboxes en masse in apartment buildings and coastal neighborhoods. side.
A CBS News review of thousands of pages of audits, court records and agency documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act shows postal workers and supervisors are not tracking keys, locking them up and do not report their disappearance.
In audit after audit of postal installations new York has Los Angelesthe agency’s independent inspectors documented that workers and supervisors failed to follow basic, long-standing regulations meant to protect keys — and prevent thieves from stealing Americans’ mail en masse.
From 2019 to 2024, records reviewed by CBS News showed that auditors checked 84 postal facilities for issues related to securing their arrow keys. At 76 facilities across 25 states and the District of Columbia, inspectors found untracked or unsecured arrow keys.
This represents 90% of all verified sites, according to data collected by CBS.
In September, the Postal Service’s inspector general identified accountability as one of three areas the Postal Service should focus on to reduce mail theft. This follows an earlier audit exposing arrow key security failures in 2020.
“If supervisors are not aware or do not take action to account for and report missing arrow keys to the Postal Inspection Service, there is an increased risk that mail thefts will continue to occur,” the inspector general wrote in 2023. “These thefts damage the reputation of the Postal Service and diminish public confidence in the nation’s postal system.
That’s certainly the case for Maria Tsalis, who learned in January from local police that thieves were stealing mail from cluster mailboxes in her Palos Heights, Illinois, neighborhood.
“I know full well that they would have emptied my bank account. Luckily it was just the two checks,” Tsalis said.
In response to the September 2023 inspector general report, Postal Service leaders said the agency would implement increased arrow key training and awareness in November.
However, records reviewed by CBS show the failures continue.
Last month, inspectors found arrow key safety issues at 10 of 12 facilities inspected so far this year, including postal sites in California, Texas, Minnesota and Maryland.
Federal law enforcement, members of Congress and the Postal Service itself have for decades reiterated the mail’s vulnerability to loss and theft of the universal keys that open the ubiquitous blue collection boxes and bulk delivery boxes in apartments and subdivisions from coast to coast. CBS found references to lax arrow key controls dating back to 1999.
“Over the 25 years you’re talking about — at the beginning of those 25 years — we’ve implemented ad hoc mitigation strategies to address weaknesses or vulnerabilities discovered with the current arrow key system” rather than implementing a broader strategy. solution, said Peter Rendina, USPS deputy chief postal inspector.
The agency now says it is retrofitting mailboxes with electronic locking mechanisms — a project that will take many years and cost billions of dollars. In the meantime, officials are promising better security on the arrow keys.
Rendina noted that there are hundreds of thousands of routes and post office boxes that need improvement across the country.
“It’s not an overnight change,” Rendina said.
To assess how well the agency protects keys, CBS News looked at every examination of postal facilities over the past decade. The documents paint a picture of inspectors finding fundamental safety problems — with patterns of repeated failures that violate Postal Service regulations.
Among the problems identified:
17 missing arrow keys at the Eagan, Minnesota, post office in 2024. Inspectors noted that “management was not aware of any missing arrow keys” until inspectors reported it. Seven years earlier, the inspector general also found unsecured arrow keys at Eagan’s home.
At the Carrollton station in New Orleans, inspectors reported a secure key space “left unattended with the key left in the lock several times during our visit” in 2023.
At the Inglewood Carriers Annex in Southern California, inspectors this year discovered that more than half of the keys in the inventory – 88 of 130 – were missing and found that staff had certified that its list of keys arrows was accurate without “inventorying available keys”.
When inspectors checked 16 postal facilities during a 2019 sweep in the Richmond, Virginia, area, they found lax arrow key security at 15 locations. At one site, “management was unable to locate 10 arrow keys” and facility managers had last updated the arrow key log more than two years earlier.
Repeated issues often appear in reports for the same locations.
Inspectors found unsecured arrow keys at the carrier’s New Orleans central station during an audit in 2020. They returned three years later, in 2023, and the facility could not account for the keys only for 21 of the 49 routes.
The carriers had kept 20 overnight, in violation of Postal Service rules that require keys to be checked in and out, tracked and locked when not in use. The cage where the keys were supposed to be locked “was often left open and unattended throughout our visit,” the inspectors wrote – a problem noted in reports from many establishments.
The inspector general also said the Postal Service does not have a national inventory of keys, does not know how many exist or how many are missing, stolen or broken. When asked how many keys were in circulation, agency leaders told the inspector general they did not know, estimating only “in the millions.”
That didn’t surprise Inspector General Tammy Hull.
“It’s not surprising, but it’s concerning,” Hull told CBS. “And it’s something we see pretty much everywhere we go.”
“This is a problem because keys are critical to mail security,” she said.
The issue of free access to keys by carriers and other postal workers is important because it is one of the ways criminals obtain keys.
Federal arrest records and court cases are filled with examples of postal workers stealing keys, selling them, or taking bribes in exchange for keys.
In April 2023, auditors inspected four postal facilities in South Florida and found lax security around the arrow keys at three of them.
Less than two months later, federal agents were tipped off that an area postal worker was trying to sell arrow keys for $10,000. They staged an operation and the worker sold an undercover agent an arrow key and half a million dollars in stolen checks, according to court documents.
The arrested worker, the prosecutor said, admitted to stealing arrow keys, selling arrow keys and having a duffel bag full of checks worth hundreds of thousands of dollars at his home.
Swapping arrow keys is not uncommon. “Arrow keys can start at $1,000 and go as high as $7,000” on the Internet black market tracked for years by Georgia State University criminology professor David Maimon.
The desire for arrow keys has also led to violence against wielders. In a letter to U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said last year that 82 percent of thefts targeted arrow keys.
Documents obtained by CBS News revealed that the number of cases of theft or assault against USPS employees increased every year from 2014 to 2023. In 2023, there were 1,129 cases. This represents an increase of 404% compared to 2014, when there were 224.
Meanwhile, as mail theft increased, the Postal Inspection Service charged with protecting the mail and the safety of postal workers faced tight budgets and staffing. The Postal Police received $541 million in 2004 and $584 million in 2023, a 33% decrease after adjusting for inflation.
The inspection service’s staffing levels have also declined, from 2,914 inspectors in 2015 to around 2,300 in 2022, the latest year for which estimates have been provided.
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