Drug traffickers turn to Express & Priority Mail
(WZZM) -- The U.S. Postal Service is seeing an uptick in business, but not necessarily in a way it wants.
California drug dealers are using Priority Mail and Express Mail to send narcotics to Michigan. In separate incidents this week, cocaine and marijuana were mailed to people in Muskegon and Wyoming.
John Hogan, WZZM
Priority Mail and Express Mail being used by drug dealers to send narcotics and cash back and forth.
A Priority Mail parcel filled with contraband arrived in Grand Rapids Sunday from Los Angeles. It contained 16 ounces of cocaine and a pound of marijuana. The recipient, a convicted drug dealer from Muskegon, was arraigned today in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids on drug trafficking charges.
In an unrelated case, 7.3 ounces of pot was found Wednesday in an Express Mail package addressed to an apartment on Woodward Avenue SW in Wyoming. It was mailed from San Bernardino, Calif.
"We haven't necessarily seen any changes in the mailing of drugs, it's just that more of them are being caught,'' said U.S. Postal Inspector Cecil Frink, who supervises nine inspectors in northern Indiana and West Michigan. "We have more personnel looking into it than we had in the past.
"Most people don't know what we do and we like to keep it that way,'' he added.
In the Muskegon case, police repackaged the cocaine and marijuana and a U.S. postal inspector delivered it to a home on Hoyt Street. The man who took delivery was identified as Kenta Raynard Jones. During a search of his home, police found the Priority Mail package in a closet, a stolen .357 caliber handgun under his mattress and ammunition inside a child's coat.
Drug dealers for years have used Priority Mail and Express Mail to ship narcotics and drug money. Express Mail offers overnight delivery and Priority Mail has two-day service.
Postal inspectors say the two services are popular with drug traffickers because of reliability, free Internet and telephone tracking service and a perception there's a minimal chance of being caught.
Postal authorities in recent years have stepped-up investigative work in cities identified as known sources of controlled substances, notably in California.
In 2012, U.S. postal inspectors and cooperating police agencies made 2,300 drug-related arrests and seized more than $20 million in narcotics.
WARNING SIGNS DRUGS ARE BEING DELIVERED BY MAIL
Use of fictitious names on mailing and return address labels;
Weight exceeding 8 pounds for Express Mail;
Mail going to or coming from a city with known drug trafficking;
Packages heavily taped;
ZIP Code from where the package is mailed is different from what's in the return address;
Parcels mailed from an Automated Postal Center to eliminate contact with postal clerks.
What I want to fucking know is why were they buying weed from Cali in a fucking medical state.