A second airline has “paid up” as part of an anti-trust investigation into a price-fixing scheme involving air cargo. Northwest Airlines (NWA) pled guilty to one count of price fixing and was sentenced to pay a $38 million criminal fine, with ten percent of that fine to be paid directly to the U.S. Postal Service.

This is the latest action in the joint investigation spearheaded by the Department of Justice that started in 2008. As a result, several airline companies and some of their executives have already pled guilty for their role in fixing prices in the air cargo transportation industry.

The Postal Service heavily utilizes numerous domestic and international air carriers to transport mail as cargo. As a result of these price fixing schemes, the Postal Service ended up paying higher cargo shipping rates.

Last year, Nippon Cargo Airlines paid the Postal Service $4.5 million for their role in the price fixing scheme, bringing the total amount of fines as a result of the Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) participation to $8.3 million. This case marks the latest success of the OIG’s Major Fraud Investigations Division.