500+ pieces of stolen mail recovered during traffic stop in Inver Grove Heights, police say
INVER GROVE HEIGHTS, Minn. — A police officer in the southeast metro recovered hundreds of pieces of stolen mail during a traffic stop early Thursday.
The Inver Grove Heights officer saw a car with its headlight out around 12:15 a.m. on the 7800 block of Concord Boulevard, the police department said. He stopped the vehicle on the 7700 block of Dowell Avenue and noticed "a tremendous amount of mail strewn throughout the inside of the car," police said.
The driver allegedly admitted to stealing the mail from nearby mailboxes and was arrested. The 34-year-old woman from Inver Grove Heights was charged with two counts of felony mail theft, police said.
Police sorted the mail, finding more than 500 stolen items addressed to 161 people. The department called it a "herculean task."
The sorted mail will be resdistributed by the United States Postal Service, police said.
What to do if your mail is missing
In this case, police recovered the stolen mail and delivered to the USPS for resdistribution. But if your mail is lost or stolen, the postal service has a plan.
USPS recommends first tracking your mail's status. If that yields no success, you can complete an online help request form. That form will go to your local post office and they will attempt to locate your missing items.
If those efforts avail nothing, you can submit a missing mail search request online.
Other tips from the USPS to prevent mail theft: Promptly pick up your mail, consider a locked PO box, don't mail cash and hold your mail when you're out of town.