A former postal worker was sentenced to over five years in prison after he was found guilty of stealing $1.6 million from U.S. mail. Hachikosela Muchimba, who once shouldered the responsibility of shepherding letters and packages to their rightful owners, now bears the weight of a 66-month sentence for conspiracy to commit theft of mail and bank fraud, among other charges, according to a Department of Justice release.
Details from the prosecution reveal Muchimba had been running this ruse since December 2020, all the way up until March 2023, from his postal route in Friendship Heights. Using his position, he was able to pilfer checks—some of which were Treasury checks bound for District postal customers. The former letter carrier made deposits into his own accounts, sometimes brazenly clad in his Postal Service uniform, as bank surveillance would later show. But it wasn't until Muchimba attempted to depart to Zambia from Dulles International Airport with $2,000 cash in tow that his escapades would come quickly to a halt. He was arrested on September 20, 2023.
As part of the sentence handed down by U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras, Muchimba must relinquish his ill-gotten gains amounting to $1,273,403.36 and pay $651,068.35 in restitution to the victims. Moreover, the Zambian native has been stripped of his U.S. citizenship—which was granted to him in May 2022—as it was procured under false pretenses, given that he committed crimes he did not disclose on his citizenship application, according to the same press release.
In the wake of the sentencing, Kathleen Woodson, Special Agent in Charge at the U.S. Postal Service-Office of the Inspector General, contributed to formally announce the steep consequences Muchimba now faces. The elaborate scheme was unearthed through diligent efforts by the U.S. Postal Service-Office of the Inspector General, alongside the Department of Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration and Homeland Security Investigations, as detailed by the Department of Justice.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys John Borchert and Diane Lucas, from the Fraud, Public Corruption, and Civil Rights Section, led the prosecution and now view the case as concluded following a successful investigation.
