This comes under the category of “No wonder the Postal Service is losing money”. It makes you wonder how pervasive this problem is.
By Larry Carson
Baltimore Sun
BALTIMORE — A U.S. Postal Service worker at the Elkridge post office is facing theft charges, accused of stealing more than $314,000 worth of stamps and, with a friend’s help, selling them on eBay.
Postal inspectors said in a federal criminal complaint that law enforcement officials began seeing stamps for sale on eBay at discounted prices in October 2008, and bought some, identifying a 23-year old Joppa man as the seller.
Through him, investigators were led to a postal clerk at the Elkridge Post Office. Later a video surveillance camera showed the man taking blocks of new stamps from a locked enclosure at the Elkridge office at 2:10 one January morning, and on other occasions.
Meanwhile, an audit of the Elkridge Post office turned up large numbers of missing stamps.
Postal inspectors said Marvin L. Foster, 54, of the 5300 block Kelmscot Road in Rosedale, a window clerk at the office, was seen on the video several times taking packages of stamps worth thousands of dollars at a time. Postal inspectors later bought several specially marked packages that they said Kyle Mathias, of the 2400 block Taylorbrook Lane had placed on eBay. Investigators said Mathias had sold $676,264 worth of merchandise, including stamps, since 2000.
