Presort boss jailed for largest-ever US fake postage scam

The owner of one of the largest presort operations in Houston has been sent to jail for running the largest counterfeit postage scam in US Postal Service history. Neal Lim, 50, the owner of two sorting plants including Gulf Coast Presort, Inc., was sentenced to 14 years by a district judge yesterday for stealing millions from USPS.

The judge hearing the case described it as a “gross, massive fraud”.

U.S. District Judge Nancy F. Atlas said: “In 16 years on the bench, this is the most extensive fraud I have seen outside of securities fraud.”

The case saw Lim and five other co-defendants printing fake postage labels that meant the volume of mass mailings entering the USPS system was much higher than the postage being paid to cover it.

Postage meters were obtained illegally, then modified to produce counterfeit postage.

The scheme was the “greatest breach of security features” on USPS postage meter machines, according to the Southern District of Texas branch of the US Attorney’s Office.

Along with his prison term, Lim has been ordered to pay back $16m to the Postal Service. Lim’s co-conspirators were handed five-year prison sentences and fines of up to $250,000.

United States Postal Inspection Service Inspector-in-Charge Gary Barksdale said yesterday the jail terms were “commensurate with the egregious nature of Lim’s criminal scheme”.

Barksdale said: “It should send a strong message of the consequences of defrauding the U.S. Postal Service.”

Lim will begin his prison sentence in two weeks.