A 33-year-old Pakistani national has been federally charged after authorities say he ran an unauthorized website that dumped more than 5.1 million counterfeit U.S. Postal Service shipping labels into the American mail stream, and left the Postal Service holding the bag for more than $126 million.
According to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Faheem Akram of Khanewal, Pakistan, operated LabelsBank.com, a site that was never authorized to sell USPS products. Investigators say the site sold fake postage at a flat cut-rate price, typically $2 a label, no matter the package’s weight, size, or destination.
Postal inspectors in Miami say more than 5,000 customers used the site.
According to NBC 6 South Florida, more than 5,200 buyers purchased the phony labels and shipped packages at rates far below what honest Americans pay. The website has now been seized and shut down.
A federal grand jury in the Southern District of Florida indicted Akram on 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. As prosecutors note, charges are allegations. He is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
If convicted, he faces up to five years on the conspiracy and counterfeit-postage counts and up to 20 years on each wire-fraud count, according to NBC 6.
U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones, President Trump’s U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, did not mince words.
“The alleged scheme was simple but massive: sell counterfeit postage online at fixed, cut-rate prices, as little as $2 per label, regardless of a package’s weight, size, or destination, enabling customers to avoid legitimate Postal Service charges,” Quiñones said in a statement released by the Postal Inspection Service.
“The indictment alleges more than 5.1 million counterfeit labels and more than $126 million in losses. Through the work of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and our prosecutors, the website has been shut down, the domain seized, and federal charges brought against its alleged operator, a Pakistani national.”
Miami Division Postal Inspector in Charge Bladismir Rojo put the warning in plain English: “Our reach goes beyond our borders. If you are defrauding the Postal Service and targeting U.S. consumers by pushing phony postage, we will find you and bring you to justice.”
The Akram case is one slice of a much bigger hemorrhage.
A September 2026 audit from the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General estimated USPS lost $3.1 billion to counterfeit package labels from March 2024 through February 2026, and could lose hundreds of millions more if the leak is not plugged.
In fiscal 2025 alone, the agency lost an estimated $1.6 billion by accepting fake labels. Tracking data showed the overwhelming majority of those counterfeit labels still moved through the system for delivery.
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