Thieves Go Once More Into the Darien Post Office Drop-Off Boxes

If you mailed an envelope late last Monday, Dec. 17 in the drive-up drop-off box, it may have been stolen: After a Post Office employee arrived there at about 1:15 a.m., she saw a suspicious car and person — then a check of the outdoor mailboxes revealed a sticky, glue-like substance on the opening.

“A check of the mailboxes revealed a sticky, gluelike substance on the opening,” police said in an announcement about the incident. “This is consistent with the practice of ‘fishing’ in the mailboxes using a device covered in glue to retrieve mail from the depository.”

Mailbox thieves visit drop-off boxes and other United States Postal Service mailboxes in search of checks to fraudulently cash. Mail tampering, which goes on across the country, recently started occurring at post offices in Darien, Greenwich and elsewhere.

Darien police provided this further information about the incident:

Police were called at 1:37 a.m. by the Post Office employee who told them she saw a gray Mercedes sedan with New Jersey license plates parked and running outside the Post Office.

She parked her own car in the parking lot, and when she left the vehicle she saw a young male run from the area of the drop-off boxes and get into the car, which then left.

Police looked for the car, but didn’t find it. (Entrances to Interstate 95 aren’t far away.) The drop-off mailboxes were checked, and the glue-like substance was found.

UPDATE, 8:33 a.m., Friday, Dec. 28: Police also provided this information not in the original article: “Officers checked the depository at the Heights Road Post Office and found the same glue-like substance on the opening.”

Recent Articles on Mailbox Tampering in the Area

—Another Case of Mail Theft from Late October / Early November Reported to Police (Dec. 22)

—Three Weeks After Theft from Darien Post Office Mailbox, P.O. Mailbox Tampering in Greenwich (Nov. 16)

—Police: Thousands of Dollars Stolen from Checks in a Mailbox — on a Shoestring Budget (Oct. 30)

Other Recent Cases

From an article published by Darienite.com on Dec. 22:

In Greenwich, Postal Service mailboxes were damaged in early November — something the arrested Yonkers males were not accused of doing.

On Oct. 1, according to the U.S. Postal Service, three Bronx men were arrested in the act of stealing mail from Postal Service blue collection boxes in Pelham, New York, not far from Greenwich. An announcement about the arrests didn’t say how the men were stealing the mail.

The arrests came after the collection boxes were put under surveillance. Authorities had received numerous complaints of mail theft had been made in Pelham and New Rochelle last summer.