In what has been an ongoing theme, a division of the United States Postal Service (USPS) has been working to crack down on crimes committed by mail.
This time, its focus has been on Connecticut.
“During the first two weeks of March 2022, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service’s Narcotics and Bulk Cash Trafficking Task Force conducted an interdiction that resulted in the seizure of more than 30 suspicious parcels that had been shipped through the U.S. Mail to Connecticut,” a Department of Justice (DOJ) press release said. “Court-authorized searches of the parcels revealed a total of approximately 24 kilograms of cocaine, 3.5 kilograms of fentanyl, 11 kilograms of marijuana, other drugs, and $420,000 in cash.”
According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) only 3.5 kilograms of fentanyl could kill 1.5 million people.
As The Star News Network has previously reported, USPS’s police and investigative services have been severely depleted as crimes committed by mail, and criminal acts involving tampering with mail and mailboxes, have soared.
“The Postal Inspection Service data revealed that mail theft reports soared by 600 percent over three years, from about 25,000 in 2017 to roughly 177,000 through August of 2020,” Frank Albergo, president of the Postal Police Officers Association (PPOA) told The Star in February. “But when asked to explain the apparent explosion in mail theft, the Inspection Service backtracked and said the figures might be inaccurate.”
“PPOs, for years, were conducting mail theft prevention patrols by using data to target specific zip codes where mail theft was most prevalent. Unsurprisingly, it was working,” Albergo told The Star. “But then on August 25, 2020, the Postal Service reinterpreted enabling statute in order to decrease postal police law enforcement jurisdiction thereby ending all postal police patrolling activities Essentially, the Postal Service defunded its own uniformed police force in the midst of a mail theft epidemic.”
Still, a top-level USPS inspector says the organization is working hard to stop criminals from using USPS as a vehicle for their crimes.
“The U.S. Postal Inspection Service aims to identify, disrupt, and dismantle Drug Trafficking Organizations across the country,” Ketty Larco-Ward, Inspector in Charge of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Boston Division said in the press release. “Postal Inspectors accomplish this by focusing on illicit drug mailers and distribution rings, maintaining an aggressive drug parcel-detection program, and seeking prosecution of mailers and recipients of illegal drugs. Combating illicit drugs in the mail is a top priority and we will continue to coordinate with our law enforcement partners as we prioritize our resources in areas with high levels of illicit drug activity.”
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Pete D’Abrosca is a reporter at The Connecticut Star and The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected].
