By VERNON ROBISON
Moapa Valley Progress
The United States Post Office in Moapa was burglarized earlier this month. The incident occurred sometime in the late night hours between October 10 and 11.
According to US Postal Service spokesman David Rupert, the incident at the Moapa facility was a forced entry. Officers of the US Postal Inspection Service, in cooperation with local law enforcement, are vigorously investigating the incident, Rupert said. Because of that, no other details on the break-in were given.
Because the burglary took place late at night the impact in lost property was thought to be relatively minimal, Rupert said. Since the mail generally comes in during the morning and people come in and pick up the mail throughout the day, much of it had already gone out, he said.
“We are aware, though, of some parcels that were taken,” Rupert said. “Our employees have identifed the impacted customers and are in the process of contacting them.”
Rupert explained that the procedure is to contact both sender and recipient. Each party gets a notice of what has happened. “We try to work with both sides towards replacement of the items or restitution,” Rupert said.
Some Moapa residents reported last week that they had experienced losses because of stolen parcels.
Leslie May of Moapa said that she had three packages that had gone missing. “I thought that I was fine because I picked up my mail on Wednesday afternoon and there was no yellow slip or locker key in my box,” May said. “But later I found out that the packages had been delivered on Tuesday and were there. They were apparently among the stuff that was stolen.”
May said that she had been instructed to file an online claim with the U.S. Postal Inspector’s office, which she did. “It was a pretty confusing process,” she said.
The total value of the three stolen packages were under $100, May said. “It isn’t going to change my lifestyle or anything,” she said. “But it is frustrating and alarming that something like that would go on all the way out here in Moapa.”
May said that when she had asked local postal employees whether the office was equipped with cameras, she was told that it was not. “They said that the Moapa office is not in a high crime area, so cameras hadn’t been installed,” May said.
Moapa resident Caitlyn Wieberg suffered a more significant loss. Wieberg owns a business creating signs, shapes and lettering out of colored vinyl material. She had just ordered more than $200 in vinyl for a big project that she had been hired to complete. That shipment was one of the items that was stolen.
“That was a huge order for me and I didn’t have the cash to order more,” Weiberg said. “So the customer had to cancel the order and go somewhere else. I lost the business, plus I’m out the money.”
Weiberg said that she had also gone through the process of filing a claim through the Postal Inspector.
Postal employees discovered the burglary had occurred when they routinely entered the building on Thursday morning, October 11. The facility was kept locked down that morning until 11 am until an investigation into the incident could begin. After a late opening at 11 am that day, the office remained open until 4:30 pm. At that time the building was locked down for the night.
The outer area of the post office building is normally left open through the night to allow customers to pick up mail from the bank of post office boxes any time. But the building had to be locked down both on Thursday and Friday nights to allow repairs to be made and the back office to be fully secured, according to local postal officials.
Nighttime access to the post office boxes at the facility was retained through the weekend. But the office had to have a night time lockdown again on Wednesday and Thursday nights last week to undergo additional repairs, according to local postal officials.
The Moapa facility is now operating as usual.
The theft of mail from the US Postal Service is a serious federal crime which can be punishable by heavy fines and/or up to five years in prison.
The Postal Inspection Service encourages anyone with information about the incident to contact the local Crime Stoppers service at by phone at 702-385-5555 or file a report online at crimestoppersofnv.com.
