Twenty-eight U.S. Postal Service employees, mostly in Southern California – including the former president of the Mail Handlers Union — have been charged with crimes including mail theft, embezzlement, bank fraud and conspiracy, the U.S. Department of Justice said Friday, Aug. 26.

The 28 are among the 33 people charged as a result of an investigation by the U.S. Postal Service’s Office of Inspector General. Most were charged in indictments handed down by federal grand juries this week.

The charges come with postal customers already reeling from seemingly unchecked mail theft right from their boxes. Mail thieves often sell the personal information obtained or use it to commit identity theft.

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“Mail theft across Southern California has increased recently. We are stepping up enforcement activities, including dealing aggressively with corruption within the Postal Service,” U.S. Attorney Eileen M. Decker said in a news release.

Theft by postal employees is not new. From October 2014 through September 2015, Office of Inspector General investigators probed 1,607 internal mail theft investigations, resulting in 493 arrests and 1,220 administrative actions, according to the agency’s website.

“The criminal charges filed against these postal service employees are very concerning,” Postal Service spokesman Richard Maher said. “This type of alleged behavior within the Postal Service is not tolerated, and the overwhelming majority of the Postal Service’s more than 636,000 employees are honest, hardworking and trustworthy individuals who would never engage in criminal behavior.”

Maher said new hires undergo background checks. Anyone facing charges can be suspended or fired. He did not know the status of the employees charged in this latest case.

Those charged include:

•Jarol Garcia, 33, of Hemet, the ex-union president who formerly worked at the Moreno Valley Delivery Distribution Center as a mail handler, is accused of stealing 166 mobile phones from parcels.

•Michael Smith, 43, of Lake Elsinore, was accused of stealing money orders from a mail envelope.

•Justin Brewster, 25, of Lake Elsinore, a Postal Service mail processing clerk, was accused of stealing video games from the mail.

•Sherry Naomi Watanabe, 48, a Los Angeles mail carrier was found to have more than 48,000 pieces of mail in her residence, the release said.

•Victoria Uribe, 48, of Rancho Cucamonga, a former Postal Service sales associate, was charged with making a false entry in an official record related to embezzlement of Postal Service money.

•Monica Cavalier, 40, of Victorville, a former sales associate, was charged with making a false entry in an official record related to the sale of stamps related to embezzlement of Postal Service money.

•Norman A. Muschamp, 48, a mail carrier from the Mid-City District of Los Angeles, is accused of conspiring to use stolen identities to order pre-paid PayPal debit cards that were sent to primarily non-existent addresses on his mail route, and then selling them.

•Jose Hernandez, 35, of Long Beach, who worked for a Postal Service contractor, was charged with mail theft.

•Christian Wesley Johnson, 27, of Los Angeles, a postal clerk, was accused of stealing $15,000 worth of cell phones from the mail.

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