WEYMOUTH, Mass. -- A tow truck company owner made a surprising discovery that has federal investigators involved.
An SUV in his impound lot contained hundreds of pieces of mail, some dating back to November of last year, that never got delivered to residents in Roslindale.
“It was pretty strange,” Bruce Hanson, the owner of Central Towing, said.
Hanson said after this gray Nissan Xterra had been sitting for 30 days in his impound lot with no one to claim it, he went a little further to contact the owner.
“So, when I got in the first thing I saw was a postal placard for a postal delivery in the dash,” he said.
That’s when he noticed about 40 brightly-colored envelopes, all opened, stuck in the side pocket.
“They were all addressed to different people with different addresses from all over the country, different places, and I saw that they were opened and it started to be a little suspicious,” Hanson said.
It appeared someone had been living out of the car with all of the clothes, shoes and blankets. Then he discovered what was underneath – a massive pile of mail.
After Hanson notified Weymouth police about his discovery, officials with the United States Postal Service came and took all the mail. On top of being a tow truck driver and helping investigate this case, Hanson said he is starting to field phone calls from people asking if he happens to have their mail.
“I've already had two calls of people asking me if we could see if their check was there or if the check they sent out that somebody didn't get,” he said.
According to the police report obtained by Boston 25 News, Megan Hawes was driving the SUV back on March 30 when she got pulled over for an expired inspection sticker. Boston 25 News confirmed with the USPS that Hawes is a mail carrier at the Roslindale office. She is still on the payroll but not interacting with mail at this time.
"Our agents are looking into this vigorously, investigating this matter at this time and we'll present their findings to the US Attorney's Office for determination from their office on how to proceed,” a statement from USPS said.
The Postal service says if residents in Roslindale believe they've been a victim of mail theft, to contact the Office of the Inspector General.
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