Postal workers have stolen more than 1.59 billion yen in public funds so far in fiscal 2004-double last year's take and already the highest annual amount in the past decade, Japan Post officials said.

While the number of postal workers sent to prosecutors for suspected crimes decreased to 103 from 133 in fiscal 2003, the size of the sums taken increased, they said.

In August, for example, the postmaster of a major post office in Osaka Prefecture was arrested on suspicion of stealing 79 million yen in cash from an office safe that he was in charge of, the officials said.

In September, a postmaster at a large post office in Chiba city was arrested on suspicion of embezzling about 1 billion yen in mail fees paid mostly by companies, the officials said.

The postmaster received mail directly from the customers and loaded it on mail-delivery vehicles by himself. When the customers paid the charges, he did not issue receipts, allowing him to pocket the money without leaving a paper trail, the officials said.

In a different case, officials said a postal worker illegally transferred money from a customer's postal savings account to his own.

Another postal worker stole stamps from post offices and sold them to kinken shops, which deal in discounted coupons, stamps and tickets.

Of the 1.59 billion yen embezzled by staff as of the end of February, 600 million yen has been recovered. The remaining 990 million yen was considered unrecoverable and will likely be written off, the officials said.

Japan Post officials said unrecoverable financial damages are written off as losses every year to balance the books.

In fact, a total of 7.8 billion yen in stolen funds had been written off by the end of fiscal 2003, according to Japan Post.

``Once a postal worker is arrested and is imprisoned, it is very difficult for us to recover financial damages from that person,'' an official said.(IHT/Asahi: March 9,2005)