HOUSTON –- Americans trust postal workers to sort and deliver mail, but some of them are slyly stealing on the job. The U.S. Postal Service confirms that 416 postal employees were arrested for theft, delay, or destroying mail in 2010.
The USPS won't talk specifics, but several customers have discovered their mail-order prescription drugs are vanishing before they make it to their mailbox.
"To me, it's obvious that someone at the post office is stealing drugs," said Jan Prusinski, a Sugar Land resident.
Prusinski gets his prescription drugs delivered through the mail just like hundreds of thousands of people.
Many health insurance companies are now requiring mail-order service, and because his drugs are classified as a controlled substance he has to sign for them and actually pick them up at his post office.
"Three weeks ago, I got the latest installment of the medication and got my 90-day supply and I brought it home and one of the three bottles in there was open and all the medication was missing," said Prusinski.
Prusinski looked closer and saw the packaging had been tampered with.
"I immediately took the package back. Unfortunately I had signed for the package already and the post office did not claim any responsibility in the matter," Prusinski said.
It was the post office near his home.
Upset, Prusinki told his story to the Fort Bend County Star. The newspaper got several calls from other alleged victims after the story was published.
One victim works at KHOU 11 News. She showed us a letter she received from the Office of Inspector General that confirmed it was investigating her theft.
The abuse of prescription drugs is an epidemic in the United States and experts say this type of theft is just another way the pills are getting into the wrong hands.
"This was a blatant criminal act and really made me feel violated, that someone would do this and that the post office would respond that way," Prusinski said.
The United States Post Office told us it cannot comment on its ongoing investigations.
