In February 2024, Kristen Arieale Williams — a USPS mail carrier assigned to the post office in Prichard, Alabama — was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison after a jury convicted her on four counts including conspiracy to commit bank fraud, bank fraud, aggravated identity theft, and theft and possession of a postal service key, following a joint investigation by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the USPS Office of Inspector General, the U.S. Secret Service, and the Mobile Police Department. Williams stole a USPS arrow key — a government master key capable of opening every blue collection box across an entire geographic area — and sold it to a coconspirator for $2,500 in cash in late October 2022. That buyer was arrested the following month using the key to loot hundreds of pieces of mail from collection boxes outside a Mobile shopping mall. In a separate parallel scheme, Williams conspired to deposit counterfeit checks drawn from stolen mail into her own bank account, using the real names, addresses, and account numbers of multiple victims. When the buyer texted asking for another key at $4,000, Williams replied that she had gone through so much anxiety the last time and that the post office had become very strict, a message that confirmed the sale was not her first. She gave a recorded confession, then lied under oath at trial, drawing an obstruction enhancement at sentencing. U.S. District Judge Kristi K. DuBose imposed 30 months in prison, five years of supervised release, and $48,334.10 in restitution. Among the victims were residents whose outgoing checks, containing their full banking information, were intercepted and forged without their knowledge.