Feds say former USPS worker scammed WA businesses, charities with phony letters
A former U.S. Postal Service employee from San Jose, California was arrested Tuesday on an indictment from the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington.
Johnny Q. Nguyen, 49, was indicted by a grand jury in Tacoma on May 28 on 11 charges related to mail fraud and money laundering, according to court records. Nguyen allegedly sent fraudulent billing statements to thousands of businesses and charities across California and Washington between July and December 2024.
Nguyen appeared in the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California on Tuesday, and is scheduled to appear in the Western District of Washington on July 1. He faces up to 20 years in prison.
What was the scam?
The letters sent in Washington claimed to be from the state’s Corporations and Charities Division. They directed recipients to send money to a post office box that Nguyen rented in Olympia. He deposited about 350 checks and money orders from Washington victims totaling $82,210, according to the Department of Justice.
He allegedly profited a total of $90,851 from businesses in both states, and investigators found over 1,700 additional pieces of mail sent to Nguyen totaling $395,295 before he was able to retrieve and deposit the money. The indictment calls for Nguyen to forfeit all of the profits from the scheme.
Court records include a sample letter sent by Nguyen to entities in Thurston County and “elsewhere” in Washington. Underneath a letterhead with the official state seal, recipients were told they owed money for a business entity default fee and annual report filing fee totaling $230 “to ensure the business remains in good standing with the state.” The letter told recipients to send checks or money orders payable to Business Entities, a California limited liability company formed by Nguyen.
A Department of Justice news release included a reminder that if people receive a communication in any form claiming to be from a government agency, they should verify the source by calling the agency directly using a publicly available number on the agency’s website.