U.S. postal inspectors continue to investigate alleged thefts of mail at the New Lenox post office as collection boxes outside the facility have been removed.
New Lenox police reported another incident a week ago in which a mailbox in the parking lot outside the post office, 300 N. Vine St., was pried open.
Postal authorities began an investigation in early January after a report of theft at the three outside collection boxes at the post office.
After the initial theft report, two of the boxes had been secured with tape in a way to prevent them from being used.
More Top Picks Atvs
All of the boxes have since been removed, although when they were pulled out and for what reason were not clear, and a postal service spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
New Lenox police said a caller reported Feb. 21 reported hearing a loud noise and seeing a vehicle drive off early in the morning, with police finding the damaged box.
Police said that anyone who had put mail in the box after 2:45 p.m. on Feb. 19, the last collection time before the box was opened, should “be aware that there is a potential for any information left in the box to be compromised,” which could include personal information and personal checks.
In an email, postal inspectors said they are working with local law enforcement in what the Postal Service described as being “mail theft attempts” at the New Lenox post office.
A spokesman for the U.S. Postal Inspection Services, the agency charged with investigating reports of mail theft, could make no other comment or clarify whether an attempt had been made to steal mail or whether mail was actually stolen.
Similar theft of mail have occurred around the Chicago area in recent years.
A Dolton man was charged with federal mail theft offenses in Park Ridge. Kelvin Dortch Jr., of the 14800 block of Evans Avenue, was arrested Sept. 15 after a tracking device placed in a bin of mail led federal investigators to his address.
He is accused in several break-ins of collection boxes outside the Park Ridge post office. Dortch pleaded not guilty during his arraignment last October, according to court records.
Dortch was not a postal employee but had a real or fake “arrow key” used to enter the Park Ridge boxes, a postal inspector affidavit filed in September in his case said.
Arrow keys give letter carriers nearly universal access to collection boxes outside post offices and in neighborhoods, as well as cluster box units and apartment mailbox panels, according to the Postal Service.
In an August 2020 report on the Postal Service’s management of those keys, the service’s office of the inspector general found that management controls over they keys were ineffective and the total number of arrow keys in circulation was not known. The audit showed that local post offices did not adequately report lost or stolen keys.
Dortch’s attorney last month had sought the court’s OK to dismiss himself from the case, citing a “total breakdown in communication” between him and his client, with the fissure being “irreconcilable and irreparable,” according to the attorney’s filing.
After a Feb. 25 hearing, the judge in the case terminated the request and set a status date in the case for April 29, according to a court filing. The ruling would appear to have rebuffed the attorney’s request to leave the case, but given him the opportunity to resubmit it.
Also, in February 2021, federal authorities also charged 11 people, including five former postal service employees and two south suburban residents, in Operation Cash on Delivery.
In that scheme, Billye Harris, of Harvey and Stephon Johnson, of Alsip, recruited postal service employees to steal mail that contained credit cards, according to the indictment. The two were not current or former postal employees at the time of the indictment.
Along with conspiracy to steal mail, Harris and Johnson are charged with aggravated identify theft, according to the indictment.
Harris, Johnson and others, according to the indictment, are alleged to have used customers’ personal information gathered from postal carriers on their routes, including dates of birth and Social Security numbers, to activate some of the credit cards which were later used at retail stores.