The U.S. Department of Justice has arrested four people, including three U.S. Postal Service employees across the New York metropolitan area, for their roles in a nearly four-year, $1.3 million fraud and identity theft scheme.

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According to a news release issued Thursday by the Justice Department, the postal employees and a civilian accomplice began stealing credit cards in the mail in December 2018, and then “used them at a variety of high-end retail stores in New York and New Jersey,” USA Today reported.

U.S. postal workers Nathanael Foucault, Johnathan Persaud and Fabiola Mompoint, along with civilian Devon Richards, were arrested Thursday on charges including conspiracy to commit access device fraud, access device fraud and aggravated identity theft charges, the department confirmed.

Meanwhile, five additional people facing charges linked with the fraud remain at large, according to the Justice Department.

“The defendants took advantage of the public trust we place in U.S. Postal Service employees for their own financial gain,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams wrote in a prepared statement.

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