Two Queens postal workers were arrested Friday, Aug. 12, and charged in connection with a conspiracy to receive bribes and steal hundreds of pieces of mail linked to a COVID-19 benefits scheme, federal prosecutors said.
The scheme sought to obtain millions of dollars in fraudulent unemployment benefits from the New York State Department of Labor (NYSDOL).
Oscar Abreu, 41, of South Ozone Park and Aldo Palomino, Jr., 30, of Long Island City, and a third man, Rafael Grullon, 40, of Manhattan, were charged in White Plains federal court with conspiracy to commit theft and receipt of stolen mail, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison; theft of mail by postal officer or employee, which carries a maximum sentence of five years; and conspiracy to receive bribes, which carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.
“As alleged, the defendants accepted bribes and stole hundreds of pieces of mail, abusing the public trust placed in them as employees of the U.S. Postal Service and enabling the perpetration of a multimillion-dollar scheme to obtain fraudulent COVID-19 unemployment benefits,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said. “My office and our partners in law enforcement will continue to hold accountable the individuals who defraud government benefit programs as well as anyone else who enables them to do so.”
As alleged in the complaints, from July 2020 to December 2020, while employed as letter carriers and working in Queens, the three defendants accepted cash bribe payments to intercept and steal mail sent by the NYSDOL to specific addresses along their assigned postal routes. Abreu was approached by a co-conspirator in mid-2020 and agreed to accept $200 for each NYSDOL envelope he intercepted and turned over to the co-conspirator, who was not named in the complaint.
The payment later increased to $500 per envelope, and at the co-conspirators’ request, Abreu recruited Grullon and Palomino who the co-conspirator agreed to pay $200 for each NYSDOL envelope that they intercepted. The stolen mail was linked to a scheme by the co-conspirator and others to obtain the COVID-19 unemployment benefits through the fraudulent filing and verification of benefit claims using the names and social security numbers of hundreds of individuals.
“It’s a sad day when postal employees allegedly aid other conspirators to commit identity theft. Their actions affected hundreds of innocent victims by enabling their fellow criminals to illegally receive COVID-19 unemployment benefits through the U.S. Mail,” U.S. Postal Inspection Service Inspector in Charge Daniel Brubaker said. “These letter carriers have betrayed the public and showed a tidal disregard for honesty and the public trust that was placed with them. Customers should know, no matter where crime is found, postal inspectors and their law enforcement partners will bring perpetrators to justice.”
Law enforcement was first alerted to the scheme when the co-conspirator and another co-conspirator fled a Yonkers hotel in December 2020, leaving behind in their previously occupied room more than 700 pieces of NYSDOL mail containing benefit debit cards. The stash of stolen mail was tied to over 500 unemployment benefit claims seeking in excess of $16 million on benefits, approximately $3 million of which had already been disbursed by December 2020.
