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Illegal drugs often are bought and sold online and shipped through the mail, but postal authorities in recent years have seized hundreds of pounds of narcotics they discovered in Dayton’s mail stream.
Postal inspectors cannot open first-class letters and parcels without a search warrant, but they say they are trained to identify common characteristics of suspicious mail and drug-sniffing police dogs assist by providing alerts when they detect the presence or odor of illegal drugs or proceeds.
“One of the top priorities for the U.S. Postal Inspection Service is to rid the mail of illicit drugs and the associated violence,” said David Gealey, a postal inspector with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. “We are able to accomplish this by focusing on illicit drug mailers and distribution rings, maintaining an aggressive drug parcel-detection program, and by seeking prosecution of mailers and recipients of illegal drugs to the fullest extent of the law.”