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this year marks the 246th anniversary of

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the united states postal inspection

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service

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join us for a virtual tour at the

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smithsonian national postal museum

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it all started on august 7 1775

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when benjamin franklin appointed the

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first

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surveyor the forerunner of today's

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postal inspector

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hi and welcome to behind the badge the

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national postal museum's

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exhibit on the united states postal

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inspection service

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the first and oldest federal law

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enforcement agency

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i'm carol harris postal inspector and

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with me

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is everyone's favorite docent retired

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postal inspector

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dan mihalko all right carol let's do it

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let's go

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so carol a lot of people don't know who

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postal inspectors are or what they do

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what types of crimes do postal

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inspectors investigate

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they investigate over 200 different

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types of federal laws

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that includes mail fraud assaults and

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threats on postal employees

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mail theft post office robberies and

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burglaries

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identity theft counterfeit money orders

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and stamps

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and money laundering child exploitation

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through the mail

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mail containing dangerous materials and

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a huge part of our focus right now

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is drug trafficking and getting illegal

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narcotics out of the mail

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so how busy are postal inspectors carol

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it's a great question dan they're

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incredibly busy

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they support and protect and network

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across the entire nation includes over

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six hundred thousand employees

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over 150 million delivery points on

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average adding over a million

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new delivery points every year

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over thirty thousand facilities we're

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investigating and responding to criminal

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activity across that entire

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landscape dan as you know postal

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inspectors investigate

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and are on the forefront of

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investigating mail fraud but we have a

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special focus

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and that's consumer fraud what can you

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tell us about consumer fraud yeah

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consumer protection is such an important

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area for postal inspectors

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it's one thing to go and investigate a

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case and arrest the bad guys

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but we like to prevent people from

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becoming victims of mail fraud

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particularly consumer fraud

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here's one of my favorites uh sports

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memorabilia front

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it's a multi-billion dollar industry in

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this particular case

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someone was selling game worn jerseys

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only they weren't worn by the star they

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were just right off the rack

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so people got ripped off on that another

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favorite of mine is old smiling bob

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he was an advertiser for male

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enhancement pills

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they didn't work and then of course we

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have the good old misrepresentations

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for example you want a prize you want a

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stereo what a great prize

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yeah but look how small it is you know

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it's five inches wide

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or you want this five piece luggage set

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all wrapped up in this

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nylon is so thin you can put your

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fingers through it these are

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misrepresentations

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we don't want people to get ripped off

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so that's why postal inspectors

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investigate

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so many consumer fraud cases so cara how

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do postal inspectors start an

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investigation

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great question dan what they're going to

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do is they're going to collect

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evidence they're going to use that and

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they're going to identify suspects

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once they've gathered evidence

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identified suspects they'll work

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together

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with our national forensic laboratory

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and they'll develop a fact pattern

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that they can then take to the us

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attorney's office

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dan over the years we've been known as

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the silence service but our stories have

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been told on the big screen and on

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television can you tell us a little

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about that

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you know carol our first venture into

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movie making was in 1936

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the title of the show was postal

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inspector it starred bella lugosi who

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was

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of course of count dracula fame but over

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the years we've done a lot more

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we've had the 1951 appointment with

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danger series

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and then we had the inspectors

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showtime movies in 1998 and in 2000

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starring lou gossett jr and jonathan

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silverman

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and i'm in it i kind of stole the show

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from lou gossett

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good to know well carol and i were

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walking into an area called the vault

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it was part of the post office vault

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when this was the washington dc post

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office

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this was way too expensive to remove so

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now it's part of our exhibit

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so dan now we're here in the vault and

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vaults represent protecting money

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and there's money in the mail and we

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have to protect that as postal

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inspectors

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the cases highlighted here represent and

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capture some of our stories from over

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the years

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here we have the dough tremont brothers

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case it's a famous train rivalry case

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from 1923 and here a famous high rate

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robbery case

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that goes back all the way to 1962 and

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just behind you here

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the jack in the box case from 1980 where

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someone hid inside of an

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airplane to steal mail and last here

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we have a case that involved a mail

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theft that was covered up

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by a fire in loretta virginia in 1997.

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so carol you mentioned about protecting

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the mail and protecting the money

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this is one of the great protectors back

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in the 1920s was a rash of mail train

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robberies

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so postal inspectors became the first

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government agents

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to be issued the famous tommy gun the

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thompson submachine gun

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in the 1930s the inspection service was

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responsible for

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guarding and protecting the billions of

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dollars

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in gold bars that were moved from the

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federal reserve in new york city

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to fort knox carol now we're walking

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into a gallery that highlights a lot of

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the high-profile investigations we've

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done over the years

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starting with that famous guy absolutely

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dan

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we worked a case on charles ponzi who's

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pictured here

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his name is synonymous with a scheme

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where you take

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money from new investors to pay off old

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investors

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and over here we have something you

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would be familiar with then

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that's right carol this was a billion

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dollar art fraud

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ring that operated out of new york but

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it covered

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the whole world they produced

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counterfeit

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art prints by famous artists such as

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salvador dali

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pablo picasso chagall miro

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they sold these things as great

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investments for 25

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35 000 but they were worth about 75

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dollars

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and here's another major case you

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probably heard about

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this the unabomber case ted kaczynski he

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was a guy that mailed and placed bombs

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from the period of 1978 to the time we

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arrested him in 1996.

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postal inspectors were part of a task

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force of fbi agents and atf agents

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and these are the cuffs that were put on

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ted kaczynski when he was arrested

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and carol moving from the unabomber this

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display case

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shows items that were used to mail

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illegal narcotics

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that's right dan just about anything you

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can imagine

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has been used to attempt to conceal

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narcotics that are being placed

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into the mail but postal inspectors are

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very smart about

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these concealment methods and just a

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handful of them

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are on display here at the smithsonian

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carol the terrorist attacks of september

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11th were followed by

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anthrax mailings and here we have one of

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the actual letters

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that was sent to the senator up on

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capitol hill that contained anthrax

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two postal employees died as a result of

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touching this anthrax it's a very

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complicated and complex investigation

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and postal inspectors fbi agents and uh

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atf were involved in this long-term

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investigation

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as we see right here this is the box

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where the anthrax mailings were made

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it's all dusted and fingerprinted also

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as you can see we had to change the way

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we operated as a result of

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something so hazardous like this going

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through the mail

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that's right dan we learned a lot

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through this investigation and we've

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adapted

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how we operate to create our modern

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dangerous mail

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investigations program to protect not

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only our employees

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but also the public at large from

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dangerous substances in the mail

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here postal inspectors do a lot more

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than just investigating don't they

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they absolutely do dan they respond and

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operate in austere and at times hostile

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environments

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whether that be a hurricane or a flood

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or after a terrorist attack you can see

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imagery

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from all of those types of instances

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here at the national postal museum

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what those postal inspectors do when

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they respond to these environments

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is that they bring back a sense of

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normalcy they help assure

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that america's communications and

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commerce once again are visibly flowing

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through the streets

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bringing back that warm comfort that our

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society needs when they see the postal

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service operating

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a key part of what we do is preventing

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crimes we'd much rather prevent a crime

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than have to solve it one of the ways we

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do that

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is through our uniform security force

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our

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postal police officers who serve at our

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facilities

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and that concludes our tour today of the

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behind the badge exhibit

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so if you're in washington dc come to

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the smithsonian

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national postal museum and if you can't

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make it

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visit postalmuseum.si.edu

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check out our website uspis.gov for more

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information on the postal inspection

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service