UPS Employees Are Arrested in Scheme to Ship Drugs and Cash


Credit...Robert Shantz/Alamy

Law enforcement officials said this week that they had taken down a “sophisticated” decade-long operation to ship drugs and cash through the United Parcel Service, leading to the arrests of 11 people and the seizure of commercial-grade equipment to manufacture illegal drugs.

The scheme involved transporting both large amounts of narcotics throughout the eastern part of the United States and cash back to the Tucson metropolitan area, United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement on Tuesday.

Drug trafficking organizations used UPS employees, including drivers and supervisors, to avoid being caught by both internal systems at the company and by law enforcement agencies. But in 2017, officials from Homeland Security Investigations, an arm of ICE, and the Tucson Police Department found evidence that drug traffickers were using UPS systems and began investigating.

“This investigation has identified and mitigated vulnerabilities in the shipping infrastructure that has allowed for the undetected trafficking of narcotics for more than a decade,” said John Leavitt, commander of the Tucson Police Department’s Counter Narcotics Alliance.

The authorities said they had seized large amounts of money, vehicles, equipment to manufacture drugs and approximately 50,000 counterfeit THC vape pens. Over the past two weeks, agents made arrests that included four UPS employees, according to the statement.

The 11 people arrested, who are between ages 24 and 49, face charges related to narcotics smuggling, drug possession, money laundering and misconduct involving weapons.

ICE did not specify which drugs the defendants are accused of moving across the United States.

Lawyers for the suspects could not be immediately identified or reached for comment.

Matthew O’Connor, a UPS spokesman, said in an email that the company was aware of the case, but declined to provide further details.