Brothers Anwer Fareed Alam, 36, and Yousofzay Fahim Alam, 34, from Temecula, have been sentenced to 27 months in prison for engaging in a fraudulent scheme that cost the United States Postal Service (USPS) over $2.1 million. The illicit activity spanned from October 2016 to May 2019 and involved the submission of thousands of false insurance claims related to Priority Mail services. The sentencing was handed down by United States District Judge Wesley L. Hsu who also ordered the Alam brothers to pay restitution amounting to $2,135,739, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Central District of California.
Admitting to a count of mail fraud on February 16, both brothers devised a method where Anwer Alam would ship empty parcels or packages of negligible value, which were insured by the USPS for up to $100 for loss or damage. In an unjust twist, Yousofzay Alam filed false insurance claims, asserting that these packages contained more valuable items than they did, and falsely declared them as lost or damaged, as detailed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Central District of California. Along with fictitious addresses and recipients, the brothers’ operation included the use of aliases and fabricated business names which obscured the extent of their deceitful claims.
The intricate deception did not stop there. Yousofzay Alam included bogus invoices and photographs of goods that were never in the parcels to substantiate the fraudulent insurance claims, as per the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Central District of California. The USPS, misled by these fabrications, issued checks which the brothers funneled into various addresses in Temecula and then into their bank accounts. An example noted by investigators was a $106.59 Priority Mail claim check sent to one such business address in November 2018…