LOS ANGELES
Two Temecula brothers were sentenced Friday to federal prison for defrauding the United States Postal Service (USPS) out of more than $2.1 million by filing thousands of fraudulent Priority Mail insurance claims.
U.S. District Judge Wesley L. Hsu sentenced Anwer Fareed Alam, 36, and Yousofzay Fahim Alam, 34, to two years and three months in prison each and ordered them to pay a total of $2.1 million in restitution.
Both Alam brothers pleaded guilty on February 16 to one count of mail fraud.
From October 2016 to May 2019, the Alam brothers purchased packages and postages from the USPS Priority Mail, which included $100 in insurance for lost or damaged parcel contents.
Anwer Alam wrapped empty packages or packages containing little or no value and then sent them via Priority Mail to fake recipients at fictitious addresses.
Yousofzay Alam then submitted to USPS fraudulent insurance claims via the Postal Service’s website and falsely certified that the packages contained items of higher value than they did and lied that the packages were lost or had been damaged in transit.
Yousofzay Alam also included false invoices and photographs of goods that were not inside the parcels.
The Alam brothers used aliases and fake business names to hide the number of false insurance claims they submitted.
Relying on the false information in the fraudulent insurance claim forms, USPS issued checks to the Alam brothers to cover their purported losses of up to $100 in value plus the cost of shipping.
USPS sent the insurance claim checks by mail to the Alam brothers at various Temecula addresses, including their home and business addresses and approximately 15 different post office boxes at two different post offices.
The brothers then deposited the fraudulently obtained funds into their bank accounts.
For example, in November 2018, the Alam brothers fraudulently caused to be sent in the mail via USPS a $106.59 Priority Mail claim check, which was mailed to a business address in Temecula.
The total loss caused to USPS through this scheme was approximately $2,135,739.
The U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General investigated this matter.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Courtney N. Williams of the Riverside Branch Office prosecuted this case.