Reality Check is a Sacramento Bee series holding officials and organizations accountable and shining a light on their decisions. Have a tip? Email realitycheck@sacbee.com.
Even with no signs of forced entry, mail is seemingly disappearing from boxes across Sacramento. Postal service officials say there are counterfeit master keys on the loose.
Police received 456 calls about mail theft in the city last year alone.
While it’s difficult to know for sure how many thefts were the product of a stolen key, residents across the metropolitan area say they’ve noticed more and more missing mail in the last few years.
About a year and a half ago, United States Postal Service Inspector Jeff Fitch said, thieves were able to get a hold of a master key.
“A letter carrier was robbed of a postal key,” he said in a phone interview with The Sacramento Bee last week. Though that key was recovered and the suspect arrested, he said “counterfeit keys are still being used to steal mail.”
Sacramento resident Nathan Grimes wanted to do something about mail theft in his North Natomas neighborhood, which had the most mail theft calls in Sacramento in recent years, according to data from the Sacramento Police Department.
His neighbors had complained that their mail kept going missing. He didn’t want it to happen to him, so he installed a camera on his property to supervise the neighborhood mailboxes.
On Jan. 23, the security system captured a video of two men breaking into the mailbox with ease. After he reported the incident, postal service representatives told him someone had a key, he said.
To address the situation across the city, Fitch said the USPS is working to get new locks throughout Sacramento. However, for the safety of postal workers, no time frame or exact locations were given.
Data from Sacramento police shows North Natomas and the Pocket neighborhoods saw the most calls in the city related to mail theft from 2015 through 2023.
Over the course of eight years, police received 471 calls from North Natomas alone.
Within the same time frame, residents of the Pocket made roughly 300 calls to police regarding mail theft.
Grimes said his Natomas neighborhood has “been experiencing widespread and persistent mail theft” that has escalated in the last five years.
U.S. Rep. Ami Bera, D-Sacramento, has made several calls for action on the “rising thefts and vandalism of cluster box units” throughout Sacramento County.
“It’s been an intermittent issue, but in recent years, our office has been hearing a lot more from constituents in Sacramento County,” said Bera, who hosted a Zoom event Thursday evening to address community concerns.
USPS recommends ‘Informed Delivery’ but it’s not fail safe
In unincorporated Sacramento County, resident Amy Braden was expecting a credit card.
As recommended by the USPS, she had enrolled in Informed Delivery — which sends customers daily emails with scans of expected mail — to ensure that her card would arrive securely.
On the day of the expected delivery, she was notified that the card should be there later that afternoon — but when she went to check her mail, it was nowhere to be found. There were no signs of break in, but she thinks it was stolen.
“This has happened in the past,” Braden said.
Mail theft has been an ongoing issue in her Arden Arcade condominium community, Woodside Homeowners Association, over the past few years, she said.
Braden filed a report with the inspection service to help her recover her stolen credit card in February.
“You’ll receive an email response in 1-3 days,” the confirmation said.
She never heard from them.
Her bank flagged fraudulent charges made on her credit card a few days after its failed delivery, and a new card was sent.
Though the USPS never responded to her report, it acknowledged the ongoing mail theft in her neighborhood.
“We did have signs posted on our mailboxes from the USPS indicating that there had been break-ins in our area and cautioning us to be sure to check our mailboxes daily and to sign up for informed delivery, which didn’t end up helping me,” she said.
Meiko Patton, a spokesperson for the USPS, said Informed Delivery does not tell users when mail has been delivered.
“Informed Delivery gives a customer a preview of what should arrive soon,” Patton wrote in an email to The Bee on Wednesday. “We will not speculate.”
Midtown resident Sofia Kyle explained a similar situation as Braden.
The recent elections were just around the corner. She was expecting her ballot in early February.
“To track my ballot, I had enrolled in Informed Delivery,” Kyle said in an interview with The Bee on Tuesday morning. “I was told it would arrive soon but never received it.”
This wasn’t the first time. Her ballot had been stolen before.
She submitted a report with the postal inspectors — but as of April 9, she hadn’t received any help from them.
Who is responsible for tracking and responding to mail theft?
The United States Postal Inspection Service is the national enforcer for crimes related to mail theft, which is a federal crime.
As federal officers, inspectors are responsible for protecting the nation’s mail system from covering criminal activity to making arrests and executing search warrants, the service’s website says.
To create annual reports and start investigations, Sacramento Postal Inspector Jonathan Lanning said the inspection service relies on data collected from law enforcement agencies, customer-driven reports and postal managers across the U.S.
Reports of stolen mail can be filed online through the USPIS website or by calling 877-876-2455.
Sacramento police and Sacramento County sheriff’s department pointed The Bee to postal inspection service with most mail-theft related questions. The police department was able to provide data through a public records request. The county said “no responsive documentation exists.”
The sheriff’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story.
Mail theft violations can result in imprisonment of up to five years and unlawful possession of a key or counterfeit key can land someone in prison for 10 years, said Lanning, the postal inspector.
Bera has contacted local postal representatives and arranged town hall meetings to discuss what proactive measures can be taken to educate the public and address the ongoing issue.
“From a legislative perspective, we don’t have any jurisdiction over that,” Bera said. “What we can do is push postal inspectors to address this issue.”
Bera said postal inspectors should be responding to mail theft incidents.
“When residents contact our office, we try to guide them to the proper resources,” he said. “That’s poor customer service on them for not responding to folks.”
Michael Mashburn, chairman for the Natomas Park Homeowners Association, said the community started noticing mail theft in 2020.
“Homeowners were commenting about it happening, so we started looking into it,” he said. “What started out as a few cases here and there turned into hundreds.”
Since 2020, he said mail theft “has grown exponentially every year.”
Mashburn said the recurring mail theft incidents have unified postal inspectors, local government officials and the Sacramento police within his community to try and address the issue.
“We have been holding community events to bring our elected officials and law enforcement together with our community residents to discuss what we could do to stop these crimes,” he told The Bee.
By “putting the statistics in front of them,” Mashburn said it sparked both the USPS and local police to work together.
Though cases have been drafted and arrests have been made, Mashburn said mail theft has not ceased.
“It’s actually grown,” he said. “Mail theft is just too easy and too lucrative.”
Though there have been brief periods without theft when law enforcement has made arrests, he said “thieves end up finding new ways to steal.”
Bera said the USPS — not homeowners associations — should change the locks to try and prevent these crimes from recurring.
“That’s what I would do if someone stole my house key, but what (the USPS) is saying is that it’s up to the Homeowners Associations to take responsibilities to change the locks,” he said. “That’s the point of contention.”
One solution the USPS has recommended, he said, is switching to electronic mail boxes.
“We’re aiming to have Sacramento County on top of that list,” Bera said.
What can I do to prevent my mail from being stolen?
Here are a few tips Lanning shared to prevent mail theft:
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Drop off your mail using the letter slots inside a post office, or hand it directly to a letter carrier.
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Pick up your mail immediately after it’s delivered — and don’t leave it in your mailbox overnight.
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If you don’t receive a check or other valuable mail that you were expecting, contact the issuing agency immediately.
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Sign-up for Informed Delivery, which provides daily email notifications of incoming mail and packages.
“None of that works if your mail never gets delivered to you,” Braden of Arden Arcade said. “I did what I was told to do and still had my mail stolen.”
Bera said some USPS officials have recommended residents gather their mail from the post office to prevent theft. That’s “just not convenient” for many individuals, he said.