What are the legal issues if your package gets intercepted by the postal system? I guess you cant really be charged can you? No proof that you actually purchased it?
Just say you never ordered it. Unless they can prove otherwise, there's nothing they can legally do. Anybody could ship drugs to your address.
i've heard some stories where the postal service will send an undercover agent and ask for your signature.. that's how the prove it, apparently.
These are all very valid concerns. Usually, when a USPS postal inspector detains a package suspected of having drugs in it, a few different things can happen. The most common scenario involves drugs being swapped out for what's known as a "love letter" in the package, instead. The letter usually delivers a message similar to this:
Dear United States Postal Customer(s)
The purpose of this letter is to advise you both the mail placed into the United States Postal Service Mail Stream is currently being withheld from delivery as there are reasonable grounds to believe its contents are non-mailable, and possibly in violation of Federal law, specifically, the Controlled Substances Act. Our attempts to contact the sender and the recipient to obtain additional information have been unsuccessful thus far.
After that, there will be some contact info for you listed and instructions for claiming the package should you wish to do so. At the end of the letter, there will be two initials (ex. M.O.) of a postal inspector's name along with a phone number should you wish to contact them. There's also a line in most of these letters towards the end that states something to the effect of, "If this package is not claimed within 30 calendar days it will be destroyed." This is a good thing.
I shouldn't have to advise you what action you should take in this situation....DO NOT CALL FOR ANY REASON. If you follow those simple instructions, nothing else happens to you. If you try to set up a meeting or call to try to plead your innocence, you're practically begging the postal inspector to make sure your address is on a blacklist at the very least.
That was the best-case scenario. The worst-case scenario involves a tactic known as a controlled delivery. This is where a mailman (who doesn't look like your normal mailman) knocks on your door with a package for you. He may ask you to sign for it, he may just hand it over to you. In any case, you can expect to see 5-10 SWAT or DEA individuals barging into your doorway immediately following your receipt of the package. You won't get a good look at them, as you'll be either violently tackled or forced in some way or another face-down onto the floor. Your cooperation in this process is neither required nor requested. One minute you'll be holding a package, the next you'll be bleeding from your face, wondering why officers with M-4's and bulletproof vests are subduing you without asking you to help in the process. It's much more painful this way. In conclusion, your new mailman was actually a DEA/FBI/Homeland Security agent conducting a controlled delivery on you, successfully.
There are other situations that are not as black-and-white but which still merit discussion. If you are regularly receiving shipments of marijuana, for example, USPS may catch a single package. Instead of sending a love letter, they may initiate an investigation to see if more packages are coming to the same name and address. I've heard of situations where USPS waited between 6-12 months for a person to receive enough packages to cross the 50kg (~110lbs.) threshold that makes one eligible for a narcotics trafficking charge. Don't worry, if you're a first offender check out the lenient sentence you can get:
Marijuana 50 to 99 kilograms. First Offense: Not more than 20 yrs.
The above has happened more than a few times, but generally to idiots shipping large quantities of weed with little to no stealth modifications. The "stealth" that some people use is stealth in name only. But, it's those types of people keeping the heat off the rest of us.
Here's a tip kids, dogs can smell through ANYTHING that is vacuum-sealed. None of the tricks that you've heard people using work, no matter how bizarre or layered they may be. If you triple vacuum-seal an ounce of weed, vapors permeate through all layers of the seal within 15 minutes. After that time frame, it is easily detected by a canine. Vacuum-sealed objects are always vapor permeable. That's why dogs can smell vacuum-sealed drugs submerged in a full gas tank in an SUV. There's only one type of easily obtained packaging I'm aware of that is
not vapor permeable after any length of time. They are something called Moisture Barrier Bags or MBB for short. Most people have seen them being used as anti-static bags for sensitive electrical components. This same material, when sealed correctly, will prevent any cargo it contains from being detected by the nose of a canine. These bags are expensive and are hard to buy in quantity, but if you're a cartel who smuggles money in vehicles over the border back to Mexico, it's a worthwhile investment. I wonder when they will realize that they need to stop vacuum-sealing their $$$ unless they plan on burying it.
Most mail carriers would tell you that anywhere from 95-99% of domestic mail is never searched unless the package itself has features that give it away completely; things like using way too much postage in the form of stamps on a Priority piece of mail, having names badly misspelled, packages that are heavily taped, lop-sided packages, packages with return address zip codes that don't match the originating facility, packages with foreign stamps or markings indicating passage through a country with a drug-exporting history....that kind of stuff.
You might think that express mail gets more scrutiny because of its urgent nature. The fact is that mail sorters and carriers are so focused on getting express mail to where it has to be, at the time it was guaranteed, that these packages are rarely scrutinized. If the express package isn't delivered on time and was guaranteed, the charges are refunded. With USPS hemorrhaging money 24/7/365 as it is, they can't afford to lose money on expensive products they've guaranteed. Just a note here, the mailmen who deliver express packages to your door will not be your normal mailman most of the time, they work in a different dept. that handles only express mail.
In closing, thousands of people use USPS as a drug courier on a daily basis over FedEx and UPS. Any mail detained by USPS can only be opened after a search warrant approves it. FedEx and UPS are known to cooperate with law enforcement much more readily, with no warrants of any kind required, the severity of the charges not a deciding factor in whether to set up a CD or not. Most controlled deliveries that you'll see on the news or on TV will be FedEx or UPS, however, USPS does them too. And if it's USPS doing the CD, chances are they've been watching you for a while and are bring serious trafficking charges to your doorstep.
If you must get involved in this risky business, do your homework regarding what qualifies as stealth and what doesn't. If you're not the one shipping the item but are receiving, you've got twice as much research to do before pulling the trigger. You are literally putting your future in the hands of a vendor and his experience when you place an order carelessly. Control as many outcomes as you can navigating through the labyrinth of weaknesses, inefficiencies and priorities that makes USPS the #1 drug trafficking service in the United States.
