A 33-year-old Pakistani national has been federally charged after authorities say he ran an unauthorized website that dumped more than 5.1 million counterfeit U.S. Postal Service shipping labels into the American mail stream, and left the Postal Service holding the bag for more than $126 million.
According to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Faheem Akram of Khanewal, Pakistan, operated LabelsBank.com, a site that was never authorized to sell USPS products. Investigators say the site sold fake postage at a flat cut-rate price, typically $2 a label, no matter the package’s weight, size, or destination.
Postal inspectors in Miami say more than 5,000 customers used the site.
According to NBC 6 South Florida, more than 5,200 buyers purchased the phony labels and shipped packages at rates far below what honest Americans pay. The website has now been seized and shut down.
A federal grand jury in the Southern District of Florida indicted Akram on one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States and to make and sell counterfeit postage stamps, five counts of making and selling counterfeit postage stamp labels, and four counts of wire fraud. As prosecutors note, charges are allegations. He is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
If convicted, he faces up to five years on the conspiracy and counterfeit-postage counts and up to 20 years on each wire-fraud count, according to NBC 6.
U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones, President Trump’s U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, did not mince words.
