A current examine discovered porch pirates steal a couple of quarter of 1,000,000 {dollars}’ value of packages nationwide day by day, and an Orange County police division is getting inventive in combating again.
One in 4 Individuals, or 64 million folks, has had a package deal stolen sooner or later, and 9 million adults have had a package deal stolen in simply the final 3 months.
Karen Gordon of Irvine says she’s been the sufferer of porch thefts a couple of dozen instances over the previous 4 years.
“Whether or not it is groceries or these packages, , we’re all affected by one diploma to a different diploma over these crimes,” Gordon mentioned.
Irvine police lately arrested a girl who was caught on safety video allegedly stealing one in every of Gordon’s packages, an internet order of bathroom paper. The thief was within the house advanced mailroom, showing to deal with it like a buffet, grabbing no matter seemed interesting and strolling out the door together with her arms stuffed with containers.
Irvine Police Division Officer Ziggy Azarcon is a part of the division’s property theft group, which more and more makes use of social media platforms like Instagram with catchy campaigns, reminiscent of “Needed Wednesday” and “Felony Friday,” to ask for the general public’s assist.
It appears to be working. Azarcon says package deal theft is down 11 % to date this 12 months in comparison with the identical time final 12 months.
He mentioned the social media posts led to the arrest of a thief they nicknamed “Postal Malone,” so named as a result of he resembled the artist Publish Malone with a face tattoos. After the posts went up, suggestions poured in, and officers obtained their alleged suspect.
To catch porch pirates, patrol officers search for vehicles with out license plates and warn that suspects typically costume up as package deal or meals supply drivers to disguise themselves.
When so many packages are being delivered through the vacation season, there are methods to forestall porch theft.
- Ship packages to a safe locker
- Have a buddy or neighbor decide up packages
- Use monitoring or textual content alerts to observe the supply
- Ship packages to your work deal with
- Require a signature for supply
