SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Sacramento Police Department has announced the results of a major, months-long operation investigating mail theft.
“[Officers] were able to make a large arrest in a very large scale operation associated with mail theft in that area,” said Cody Tapley, Sacramento Police Department officer.
Neighbors say they started noticing mailbox thefts near Clay Creek in North Sacramento at the beginning of this year. They were concerned someone stole a master key, because they keep getting targeted.
“From the looks of it during the investigation we found that they were utilizing homemade tools to essentially take pieces of metal and create copies of these keys and actually testing them out on locks to figure out which ones worked and which ones didn't so they could open up mailboxes,” said Tapley.
Police say eight people were arrested on felony mail theft charges, hundreds of pieces of mail were recovered along with fake mail keys and even parts of a United States Postal Service uniform.
While residents were frustrated about the ongoing problem, they are thankful for this first step to solving it.
“Props to them for making that arrest,” said neighbor Chris Levy. “The next step is the boxes are going to have to get replaced.”
Anyone with any information regarding mail thefts is encouraged by police to give them a call so they can investigate further.
