Focus on fighting mail theft pays off

Jace Radke

Friday, April 30, 1999 | 11:18 a.m.

Despite two apartment complexes reporting mail thefts on Monday, United States postal inspectors say they are making progress in battling what was turning into an epidemic of missing mail in the Las Vegas Valley.

Monday's thefts were from apartment mailbox units near Arville Street and Twain Avenue and Desert Inn Road and Maryland Parkway, but the two thefts bring the total number reported for April to just five. That's a big improvement from earlier this year, postal inspector Don Obritsch said.

"It reached its peak in December and January, and it was really out of hand," Obritsch said. "We had 112 thefts reported in Las Vegas in December and 64 in January. We've been cracking down on it with the help of Metro Police and area banks, and brought the numbers way down."

In February only 26 thefts were reported. In March the number went up slightly to 34 thefts, before dropping again in April.

"We've made some arrests over the last couple of months, and I think people are learning to take more precautions with their mail," Obritsch said. "Both things have helped to bring the number of thefts down."

The six-state Rocky Mountain Inspectors Division, which includes Nevada, had reported more than 1,200 thefts from neighborhood mail collection box units and apartment building mailboxes from September 1997 through January 1998.

Since then Las Vegas inspectors have focused on the thefts, Obritsch said.

"In Las Vegas we usually spend a lot of time working fraud and telemarketing, but the thefts were so numerous that we had just about the whole Las Vegas office working on them," Obritsch said.

Mail has become a favorite target for criminals because of the possibility of finding personal checks, Metro Police detective Paul Evans said.

Once criminals have a personal check, they can wash it clean of handwriting with substances like acetone or brake fluid and then make it out to themselves and cash it.

"It's common for us to find evidence of mail theft at busted meth labs," Evans said. "It seems like we are busting three or four meth labs a day, so it's not all the time that we connect them with mail theft, but it does happen."

Obritsch sees the meth connection as a big reason why mail thefts will be around for a while.

"As long as we have meth labs in Las Vegas we'll probably continue to see thefts because it's a way for them to get money for the drugs," Obritsch said. "It's a nonviolent crime with a high rate of recidivism."

Even though mail thefts have dropped, residents should still take precautions, Obritsch said.

"People should pick up their mail as early as they can after it comes, and they should always drop their mail in a box in the morning," Obritsch said. "People should never leave their mail in a box overnight."