MINT HILL, N.C. — Mint Hill police are warning people to be careful with their mail after an unknown amount of mail was stolen from a local post office's outdoor drop box.
A U.S. Postal Inspector said the drive-through drop box location at the post office off Lawyers Road had to be “moved due to criminal activity.”
The drop box is now closer to the front door with surveillance cameras near it.
"I asked the postal worker what happened, and he told me people were breaking into the mailboxes,” said Pat Jackson, a post office customer.
Mint Hill police responded to a report of the outside mailbox being broken into at the post office off Lawyers Road around 9:45 p.m. on December 9. When officers arrived, police said the mail was scattered throughout the parking lot.
They don’t know how many pieces of mail were taken.
About a month later, police said two women filed reports involving stolen money and fraudulent checks totaling more than $3,000 in connection to the mailbox break-in.
"I just hope that we can do something about the crime rate in the area,” Jackson said. “It's depressing."
The Mint Hill Police Department encourages people to never mail anything with personal or bank information from a personal mailbox or an outside community mailbox.
Instead, police say customers should mail items involving money or checks inside the post office.
"With the boxes out front and all that, they can break into those,” said Jim Phillips, a post office customer, “But if it's inside, then it's in the mailbox or in the post office, so they can't get to it."
USPS said this is still an ongoing investigation, and they are committed to protecting U.S. Mail and its customers.
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