Pakistan arrests man wanted in US over $126m postage fraud

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - LAHORE —Pakistan's cybercrime agency on Tuesday arrested a man accused of running an online counterfeit postage operation that prosecutors say caused more than $126 million in losses to the US Postal Service.

Faheem Akram, 33, was arrested after a weeks-long search involving raids across several parts of the country, a senior official at the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency, Atif Ameer, told reporters.

Akram, a resident of Khanewal in eastern Punjab province, was indicted by a federal grand jury in the Southern District of Florida, the US Attorney’s Office for the district said in a Sept. 28 statement.

The office alleged that Akram operated LabelsBank.com, an unauthorized website that sold more than 5.1 million counterfeit shipping labels to thousands of US customers over the years. The labels typically cost $2 each, regardless of a package’s weight, size or destination. Authorities have now shut down the website.

The counterfeit labels allegedly allowed customers to ship packages at rates far below legitimate prices, resulting in substantial lost revenue and shipping costs to the Postal Service.

Earlier this month, the US Postal Inspection Service offered a reward of up to $100,000 for information leading to his arrest.

Akram is charged with one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States and to make and sell counterfeit postage stamps, five counts of making and selling counterfeit postage stamp labels, and four counts of wire fraud.

If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison on the conspiracy and counterfeit postage counts, and 20 years in prison on each wire fraud count, the office said.