Nearly 7 Tons of Illegal Drugs Sent by US Mail Went to Georgia – WSB-TV Channel 2

ATLANTA — An investigation by Channel 2 Action News found that drug dealers have shipped more than 150 tons of opioids, cocaine, meth and other drugs through the US mail in recent years. Almost seven tons of it went to Georgia.

Channel 2’s Tom Regan examined how postal inspectors are working to stop these deadly deliveries.

The Mail Control Service has established a national task force to intercept illegal drugs in the mail. They work with federal and local law enforcement agencies and prosecutors.

With so many illegal drugs entering the US and Georgia, it’s an ongoing struggle.

The postal service handles billions of pieces of mail and packages each year.

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As inspectors scour the mail for illegal drugs, many thousands of pounds of drugs slip through and end up on the streets of Georgia and across the country.

Sometimes this is done with the help of Rouge postal workers.

“They provided a way for the drug dealer to get their product,” said FBI Special Agent Ronald Miller.

Miller worked on a full-scale undercover investigation into metro Atlanta mail carriers who accepted bribes to personally deliver drug packages to dealers.

“We’ve learned that it doesn’t appear to be uncommon for drug dealers to work with a postman to pay bribes to obtain the drugs without being caught by law enforcement,” Miller said.

The FBI provided Channel 2 Action News with surveillance photos of postmen involved in the scheme.

“So instead of delivering it to the actual location, they met somewhere off the delivery location and exchanged the package for a bribe,” Miller said.

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The drug mail corruption investigation emerged from the DeKalb County Attorney’s Office.

An investigator learned of mailmen suspected of acting as drug couriers.

“I’ve been working on some cases and have received some information that there may be something going on at the DeKalb post office. By providing this information to federal investigators, we have worked with the US Attorney’s Office to prevent this operation,” Sherry Boston said. the District Attorney of DeKalb County.

About 17 employees in nine post offices were arrested. Most plead guilty. A judge sentenced the last accused in March.

“But if you can break the cycle, the distribution, figure out how it’s distributed across the county or state, and break that cycle, then you can really get more illegal and illicit drugs off the streets,” Boston said.

Channel 2 Action News filed a Freedom of Information Act request, finding that Georgia postal inspectors intercepted hundreds of pounds of illegal drugs between May 2020 and May 2022, including 44 pounds of opioids including fentanyl, nearly 315 pounds of meth and 98 pounds of cocaine .

Our analysis found that most Georgia packages went to addresses in Atlanta, Savannah, Marietta, and Lawrenceville.

This may come as a surprise to some postal customers, but not to others.

“I think you need to develop a system to search for it quickly. And that’s difficult,” said Catherine, a mail customer.

The US Postal Service is working with other agencies on drug intelligence and technology to crack down on drug shipments.

“We’re looking at a lot of data, aren’t we? We look at past seizures. We’re looking at ongoing cases, things that might tie ongoing cases to other packages that might be out there,” said Daniel Adame, inspector in charge of anti-smuggling and investigations at the US Postal Inspection Service.

Last year postal inspectors seized nearly £84,000 of illegal drugs.

“The US Postal Service does not deal with the delivery of medicines. And we want, we’re going to do everything we can to prevent that from happening,” Adame said.

Postal inspectors said most of these illicit drug shipments came from Puerto Rico and the southwestern border — California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

They are sending response teams and additional resources to these areas to stop the flow of drugs into our communities.

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