Postal worker deposited 98 stolen checks worth $1.7 million, feds say. He’s convicted

A postal carrier stole and forged nearly $1.7 million in checks from the mail and became a citizen during the process, federal prosecutors said.

Now, a jury has convicted 44-year-old Hachikosela Muchimba of an array of fraud and mail theft charges, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia announced March 14.

Prosecutors had previously offered Muchimba a plea deal that he turned down in favor of trying to flee to Zambia, McClatchy News previously reported. He was caught at the airport with $2,000, according to investigators.

McClatchy News reached out on March 14 to Muchimba’s attorney for comment on the verdict but did not immediately receive a response.

In January 2023, one customer on Muchimba’s mail route in Washington, D.C., noticed that a U.S. Treasury check he was supposed to receive had been stolen and deposited in the name of his mail carrier, investigators wrote in a criminal complaint.

Investigators said they subsequently uncovered a scheme going back to 2021 in which Muchimba, aided in part by a co-worker at the post office, was stealing checks from people on his mail route, forging them and depositing them into seven different bank accounts he controlled.

Ninety out of the 98 stolen checks were U.S. Treasury checks, many of them worth tens of thousands of dollars, prosecutors said.

He deposited one U.S. Treasury check worth $415,173.53, records show.

Muchimba was captured on surveillance footage going to ATMs to withdraw the fraudulent proceeds while wearing his USPS uniform, according to the complaint.

“Muchimba used proceeds from the stolen checks to fund a lavish lifestyle, including, but not limited to travel within the United States and abroad, stays at luxury hotels and purchases at gentlemen’s clubs,” investigators wrote in an indictment.

He spent more than $14,000 at Bvlgari Resort Bali, and in at least one case, he paid his co-conspirator $1,000 for help stealing a check, according to an indictment.

In September 2021, months after the scheme began, investigators said Muchimba initiated the process of becoming a U.S. citizen by submitting an application for naturalization. He answered no to questions on the form that asked applicants whether they had ever been involved in a crime they hadn’t been arrested for or whether they had ever defrauded or misled government officials.

He signed the application under penalty of perjury and became a citizen during a ceremony in May 2022, prosecutors said.

By the time he gained his citizenship, Muchimba had made himself more than $450,000 richer in the mail theft scheme, according to investigators.

Muchimba was found guilty of conspiracy to commit theft of mail and bank fraud, theft of mail; bank fraud; engaging in a monetary transaction in property derived from specified unlawful activity; and unlawful procurement of citizenship or naturalization, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

He’s scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 8.

This story was originally published March 14, 2025 at 6:09 PM with the headline "Postal worker deposited 98 stolen checks worth $1.7 million, feds say. He’s convicted."