Is American Canyon’s mail theft phenomenon coming to an end?
This week, American Canyon Police have made three arrests on suspicion of residential mail theft. The arrests come after months of complaints from residents about missing mail and packages.
The first arrest occurred after midnight on Dec. 7, when 43-year-old Los Angeles man was arrested by American Canyon police following a nearby resident’s calls to police.
The man was sighted parking his BMW near mailboxes by the America Canyon Post Office on Crawford Way. In his car, alongside stacks of other peoples’ mail, IDs, checks and methamphetamine, “officers discovered a homemade ‘fishing’ device,” a contraption using duct tape and rat trap glue to extract mail from collection boxes, according to an American Canyon Police Department press release.
Yesterday, Dec. 10, officers arrested two American Canyon residents, one 26-year-old man and one 36-year-old woman, following a traffic stop at the Safeway gas station. According to a press release, “officers conducted a probation search of the man’s residence … they found multiple credit cards belonging to other individuals, a printer/scanner with blank check templates and stolen mail.”
In late October, American Canyon resident Kevin Johnson posted on Facebook that “someone is definitely stealing our mail. They washed my mortgage check and cashed it for the amount I wrote … it appears to have been remotely deposited to a credit union in La Loma, Ca.” Another poster responded: “This isn’t the first I’ve heard of this.”
This year, Business Insider reported that California ranks number seven among the states with the highest incidents of identity theft.
Henry Wofford, spokesman for the Napa County Sheriff Department, said that around the holidays, “you begin to see not just mail, but package theft. Be on the lookout for your items.” Theft also tends to happen when people are expecting IRS check returns. “If anyone has a tip, always report it,” Wofford said.
On Nov. 12, American Canyon police publicized that they were looking into the issue. “Mail thieves have recently been fishing outgoing mail from the outdoor USPS drop box,” read their statement. “Please avoid using the exterior blue mailbox for outgoing mail.”
All three suspects were booked into the Napa County Department of Corrections on suspicion of identity theft and other allegations. The Los Angeles man was released from Napa County Department of Corrections Sunday morning. The American Canyon man and woman were released early Wednesday evening.
Police did not confirm if the arrested parties were connected to previously reported mail theft incidents. In their statement, they stated that “the investigation is ongoing.”
