UPS worker busted for possessing Cannabis and stealing packages
32-year-old had a bit of bud and several undelivered packages in his vehicle.
A UPS employee in Monroe, La. is no longer employed after a police investigation determined the 32-year-old had a bit of bud in a camouflage bag and several undelivered packages in his vehicle.
According to KTVE/KARD, the man faces multiple theft and controlled substances offences after officers were called into the UPS facility on Nov. 29. Responding officers were informed the accused had just been fired after he was found with a half-gram of cannabis inside a camouflage bag.
Possessing as much as 2.5 pounds (1.1 kilograms) of cannabis is treated as a misdemeanour in the state, with 14 grams to 1.1 kg of weed carrying a maximum penalty of six months in jail and a US$500 ($670).
Any amount beyond that is treated as a felony, with prison time increasing and fines skyrocketing with higher amounts, per the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.
The accused confessed to owning the illegal bud and told police there was also a small amount of cannabis in his vehicle.
There, officers discovered not only the weed, but also several, small and undelivered UPS packages on the vehicle’s passenger seat noting the same address and five more in the trunk, this time addressed to different people. Most had been reported by customers as not delivered.
Combined, the value of the items inside the packages was estimated at about US$4,000 ($5,360).
The former employee now faces six counts of theft and one count of possession of a controlled substance.
The find is not a first related to staff vigilance at courier companies.
This past March, a 31-year-old man in Florida was charged with trafficking marijuana after his alleged bid to receive about 86 kilograms of weed through the mail earlier in January was returned to sender.
The Panama City Police Department thanked employees at a UPS store in the Florida community after they noticed three large boxes that smelled like weed and called the cops.
A few months later at a FedEx office in Wyomissing, Penn., employees there got an eyeful and a nose full after receiving two smelly packages and decided to open them. Inside, they found what appeared to be bulk weed that came from Florida and was destined for a resident in nearby Berks County.
Likewise, FedEx locations are no strangers to illegal cannabis. Among other U.S. locales, unanticipated discoveries of weed have been made in Louisiana, Maryland and Massachusetts.
Not so positively, however, the Louisiana man is also not the first employee to find himself busted for transporting or supplying weed.
In late October of 2021, a former jail guard in Arkansas was sentenced to three years probation for his role in smuggling contraband to inmates.
That same month, a 53-year-old postal service supervisor who admitted he stole cannabis from a package that had been confiscated was scheduled to spend two months in U.S. federal prison for the transgression.
An audit of the U.S. Postal Service revealed that 200-plus packages believed to contain cannabis had gone missing during internal shipments in 2019.
