Silk Road forums

Discussion => Shipping => Topic started by: uniwiz on March 07, 2012, 06:50 pm

Title: Phony Postal Inspector Busted For Swiping Pot Shipments
Post by: uniwiz on March 07, 2012, 06:50 pm
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/stealing-mail-for-drugs-671249


MARCH 5--On the hunt for illegal narcotics being shipped via Express Mail, a Michigan man allegedly repeatedly entered a sorting facility, claimed to be a postal inspector, and walked out with dozens of parcels, many of which contained marijuana, investigators charge.

According to a criminal complaint filed yesterday in U.S. District Court in Detroit, Calvin Coolidge Wiggins, 31, said, “You got me” when questioned Saturday morning by federal agents who had arrested him outside the Priority Mail Center in Romulus. Wiggins is pictured at right.

Wiggins, an investigator reported, admitted that he “previously had been involved in mailing Marijuana via USPS Express Mail and was tired of having the parcels seized.”

So he allegedly sought to seize the parcels of other drug traffickers.

A surveillance team spotted Wiggins entering the facility on March 3 and walking “towards the area of the plant where the Express Mail was being processed.” There, Wiggins was seen taking two parcels and placing them into a wheeled hamper.

Wiggins told federal agents that on “numerous occasions” he had gone to the Romulus facility and “posed as a Postal Inspector in order to steal Express Mail parcels which he believed contained controlled substances,” according to an affidavit sworn by a postal inspector.

Many of the pinched parcels “did contain Marijuana,” revealed Wiggins, who estimated that he had swiped between 40 and 50 Express Mail packages.

The probe of the mail thefts began in January, when postal inspectors determined that multiple packages destined for the Detroit area went missing. Many of the parcels were characteristic of packages that, in the past, had been found to contain controlled substances.

Last month, a review of surveillance footage showed a black male suspect entering the Romulus plant on Saturday, February 11 and walking out with eight packages ranging in weight from two to 28 pounds. The swiped parcels “all originated from known narcotic source areas,” noted Postal Inspector Edmond Rose.

Anticipating that the suspect would return, federal agents Saturday staked out the Priority Mail Center, where they allegedly caught Wiggins in the act.

Wiggins was named in a two-count felony complaint charging him with theft of mail and impersonating a government employee. At a court appearance yesterday, a magistrate judge freed Wiggins on a $10,000 unsecured bond.

Records show that Wiggins is a registered sex offender as a result of a sexual battery conviction in Ohio. He first registered in June 2000, and will have to remain on the offender list for the rest of his life. (4 pages)

Title: Re: Phony Postal Inspector Busted For Swiping Pot Shipments
Post by: uniwiz on March 07, 2012, 06:54 pm
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/postal-workers-drug-bust-765419


OCTOBER 14--When a suspicious package arrived last month at a New York City post office, it was set aside for examination by postal inspectors since the 12-pound Express Mail package appeared consistent with parcels that had been previously used to ship narcotics across the country.

The cardboard box was placed for safekeeping on a supervisor’s desk in the Queens post office. But before the package could be examined by investigators, a postal employee allegedly took the parcel from the supervisor’s desk and, with the help of a coworker, cut open the box and removed a brick of marijuana.

The pair’s actions on September 10 were caught on a surveillance camera, according to a criminal complaint filed yesterday in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn.

According to the felony complaint, Lori Allen took the package from the desk and opened it with Coretta Womack, who put “several small square shaped boxes” back into the plundered package.  Womack then added bubble wrap and re-sealed the parcel, according to federal agent Steven Demayo.

On September 26, when postal inspectors retrieved the suspicious package, they “observed signs of tampering as the parcel appeared to have been opened and re-taped closed.” Investigators also determined that the package weighed six pounds less than it did when initially mailed from California to New York.

A subsequent review of surveillance tapes resulted in the arrest Wednesday of Allen and Womack. Court filings indicate that both women confessed to stealing the marijuana inside the package. Womack told probers that over the past few months she had stolen approximately 20 other packages, about four of which contained narcotics. Both Womack and Allen claimed to have received between $1000 and $2000 for the respective hijacked narcotics.

Womack, who immediately began cooperating with federal agents, said that the narcotics were fenced through Wayne Wilson, an acquaintance who lived near the Rosedale post office. After his arrest, Wilson told investigators that Womack told him several months ago that she had access to “parcels containing narcotics.”

Wilson told agents that he eventually purchased intercepted marijuana shipments from Womack on about six occasions, paying between $4500 and $7000 per parcel depending on weight.

Allen, Womack, and Wilson are each facing federal raps related to the pilfering scheme. Allen is free on $25,000 bond, while Womack and Wilson were freed yesterday on $50,000 bond. (6 pages)

Title: Re: Phony Postal Inspector Busted For Swiping Pot Shipments
Post by: microRNA on March 08, 2012, 07:03 am
lol very interesting read. thanks for posting

cant believe the one due was able to walk into the post office and just walk out with suspicious packages!

at least the usps has enough stupid dug traffic to distract them from our discreet proceedings here on the Road :P
Title: Re: Phony Postal Inspector Busted For Swiping Pot Shipments
Post by: Nikodym on March 08, 2012, 07:11 am
So do I correctly infer from this article that a lot of compromised packages are simply seized and destroyed? Isn't that what motivated this guy's ballsy/retarded plot to recover seizures?
Title: Re: Phony Postal Inspector Busted For Swiping Pot Shipments
Post by: shock1171 on March 08, 2012, 07:22 am
did he even put on a costume?
Title: Re: Phony Postal Inspector Busted For Swiping Pot Shipments
Post by: inscape on March 08, 2012, 07:53 am
So do I correctly infer from this article that a lot of compromised packages are simply seized and destroyed? Isn't that what motivated this guy's ballsy/retarded plot to recover seizures?

sounds to me like the package was intercepted beause it most likely blatently ommited an odor or or in some other way broadcast it's contents, a bunch of pot, getting it set-aside on the sup's desk for him/her to send onwards to, most likely, postal inspectors.

had their plot not been foiled by those meddling kids...

edit: oops got the stories mixed up, but thats still what them damn kids did in the second story.. :)
Title: Re: Phony Postal Inspector Busted For Swiping Pot Shipments
Post by: uniwiz on March 08, 2012, 08:43 pm
I just posted out of humor.
How people can load up pounds of unseal weed, and mail it beats me.
Plus if your wondering why packages go missing.

I wonder if vendors have currier's that steal from them.
I think the 2nd case proves that.

Also the USPS knows it's moving a lot of drugs.
Title: Re: Phony Postal Inspector Busted For Swiping Pot Shipments
Post by: Crooked on March 09, 2012, 12:27 am
USPS would be long out of business if drug dealers didn't use them like santa uses a reindeer.