RICHMOND, Va. — New surveillance images show potential suspects Richmond Police say may be tied to a brief stint of U.S. Postal carrier robberies last year.
Officials say one robbery happened on March 28 and then another on April 1. In both cases, USPS carriers delivering mail were threatened by a man wielding a handgun, demanding their mail key.
"Once the criminal gets that arrow key, they have access to all the blue collection boxes, all the apartment panels, all the cluster boxes, all the relay boxes in a given zip code. I mean, it's basically a free pass to steal mail," said Frank Albergo, a Police Officer with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the President of the Postal Police Officers Association. “For every letter carrier robbery, you're going to have hundreds of mail theft victims, check fraud victims, identity theft victims. You're going to have bank accounts drained. I mean, so it's serious.”
In 2023, USPS started "Project Safe Delivery" to "harden" mail collection boxes in high postal crime areas and even conducted law enforcement surges. Based on a 2024 press release, the launched included more than 5,500 mail theft and violent crime prevention activities nationwide.
But Albergo said the push isn't enough.
“There has been a slight downtick in the carrier robberies, but that's only because criminals are figuring out other ways to steal mail," Albergo said. “They're reverse engineering arrow key locks. They are colluding with postal employees. They are just, you know, using force to break into cluster boxes so it's their own. All out assault on the Postal Service.”
Albergo said in recent years, Postal Police have been tasked with guarding buildings, not carriers. He said doing the reverse would act as a deterrent.
“Hopefully they get arrested and hopefully they go to jail, but the damage is done," Albergo said.
This is a developing story. Email the CBS 6 Newsroom if you have additional information to share.
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