The United States Postal Service has been struggling to survive since the rise of the Internet. Being defrauded out of millions of dollars by an East Bay employee probably doesn’t help.
Union City’s Balvinder Singh Chadha, 45, and his wife, Jaspinder Kaur Chadha, 39, pleaded guilty to defrauding the USPS out of $4.4 million since 2005.
As a former USPS manager, Chadha was in a position to influence contracts given out to independent companies. He founded a truck leasing company, Golden Pacific Logistics (GPL), then proceeded to use GPL to steal nearly four and a half million dollars.
GPL billed USPS for a variety of false expenses like trucks, mileage, servicing and maintenance that never occurred and were never authorized. Of the $6.4 million USPS was billed for by GPL, less than one-third was legitimate.
Though the billing itself is obviously illegal, so is the contract GPL obtained with USPS.
The federal government’s conflict of interest statute says all USPS employees are banned from knowingly partaking in a contract from which they will financially benefit.
The Chadhas pleaded guilty in late March and will be sentenced on July 11 in Oakland.
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