Police units sniff out mail stuffed with illegal drugs

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated that the Newport News Police Department had not responded to requests for information. A public information officer from the department did respond.

VIRGINIA BEACH

At first, Johnathan Leon Wright Jr. supplied his marijuana-distribution operation with 50-pound shipments delivered to the Beach in vehicles driven from Florida and California, according to a federal criminal complaint.

Then he discovered a complex network of airplanes, vehicles and couriers who could help deliver his product: the postal system and private mail carriers.

Armed with canines trained to sniff out drugs, local, state and federal authorities watch the mail for packages like Wright's as they come through the post office and carriers such as FedEx, UPS and DHL.

The goal is to intercept illegal drugs, track down their sources and, package by package, try to dismantle the drug trade, or at least cut off one of its channels, said Virginia State Police Lt. Kevin Hood, who oversees the agency's drug-interdiction team.

The efforts remove millions of dollars worth of drugs off the street each year. But it's not something police like to advertise.

They don't want to tip off criminals, and private mail carriers don't like to be associated with drugs, said Officer Jimmy Barnes, a spokesman for Virginia Beach police.

Carriers like FedEx and UPS don't have to allow police inside their buildings, but they sometimes do so as a courtesy.

Virginia Beach formed it s Interdiction Squad, which works to catch drugs as they enter the city, in the late '80s, said Lt. Duane Hart, who oversees the unit. Last year, the department seized about $3.1 million in drugs, he said. The department doesn't track how much of that came through package interdiction.

"We're interdicting every way that people try to bring it into the city," Hart said. "You name it, people are trying it."

Chesapeake, Suffolk, Newport News and Hampton also intercept packages. Portsmouth declined to comment, and Norfolk did not respond to requests for information.

Detectives don't like to discuss their methods, but search warrants filed in Virginia Beach Circuit Court give a glimpse of how they work to find drugs.

Sometimes police get a tip from another law enforcement agency. Other times, they develop their own intelligence, or a canine officer picks a package from a random lineup.

Once officers suspect that a box or envelope contains drugs, they obtain a search warrant from the magistrate's office. That allows them to confiscate the parcel as evidence. They can also send an undercover detective to deliver it, allowing them to make an arrest or develop an informant.

Traffickers try all sorts of tricks to fool the canines - such as hiding drugs in jars of peanut butter or lacing boxes with perfume - but they usually don't work, Hart said. The packages often come from California and Arizona and can contain anything from marijuana to heroin. Sometimes, police catch boxes of drugs leaving the city. In Virginia Beach, warrants most often describe finding pot.

The Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the state police also get involved. Last year, the state police's three-man Public Transportation Team confiscated $3.8 million in drugs statewide, Hood said. The most popular, marijuana, was 69 percent of the total.

Putting drugs in the mail is nothing new, said Postal Inspector Michael J. Romano, a spokesman for the regional office of the Postal Inspection Service.

"As long as drugs have been around and as long as the postal service has been around, the potential to mail drugs and narcotics is there," he said. It's a felony punishable by four to 20 years in prison, he said.

Mail carriers may unknowingly get into danger when delivering a narcotics package to a residence. So the goal is to identify drug parcels before they're sent, Romano said.

Nationwide, the Postal Inspection Service's package interdictions yield about $4 million in drugs and result in about 1,000 arrests every year, he said.

Law enforcement agencies say the flow remains pretty steady.

"They're constantly busy, whether or not there's more of it there or they're better at finding it now, there's a number of variables," Hood said about his team. "The whole objective is to dismantle drug trafficking, and that's the benefit."

In June 2008, drug supplier Wright flew to California, purchased five to six pounds of high-quality marijuana, packed it in a box and mailed it to Virginia, according to the criminal complaint. Over the next year, he would make the trip 12 more times, each month shipping four or five boxes stuffed with 25 to 30 pounds of pot, according to the criminal complaint.

On June 4, 2009, Virginia Beach detectives looking for narcotics intercepted one of Wright's boxes as it arrived at a local package center. A drug-sniffing dog smelled the 28 pounds of marijuana inside, according to police and court records.

The find gave investigators the thread they needed to unravel Wright's operation.

In the weeks that followed, detectives seized 256 marijuana plants, 222.3 grams of marijuana, 1,808 grams of cocaine and $28,231 from homes, storage units and vehicles tied to Wright, 28, and his brother Dion Jimon Wright, 34, according to the criminal complaint. They pleaded guilty last week in federal court in Norfolk to conspiracy, possession with intent to distribute narcotics and maintaining a drug-involved premise.

According to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, they're eligible for life in prison. They're scheduled for sentencing in October.

Pilot researcher Maureen Watts contributed to this report.

Kathy Adams, (757) 222-5155, kathy.adams@pilotonline.com