CINCO RANCH, Texas – Officials say mailbox thefts are on the rise in Fort Bend County. One community is reporting their most recent incident early Friday morning.
People who live in the Canyon Gate at Cinco Ranch subdivision say thieves managed to break into a cluster mailbox in their gated community and get away with countless pieces of mail.
There are several factors that make this federal crime even more frustrating for homeowners there.
One of the victims in this latest theft says her home surveillance camera caught the whole thing around 5:30 a.m. Friday morning, aside from who did this, people there are wondering how it was done, because there’s only one way in and one way out of the guarded and gated community.
“Early this morning about 5:30 I received a ring notification,” said a woman who asked not to be identified. She shared footage from outside her home.
“There’s a figure over at the mailboxes and she had all the doors open and she’s retrieving all the mailboxes and putting it in a bag,” she said.
Then a vehicle pulls up.
“She proceeds to put everything in the trunk, gets in the car, drives off,” the woman said.
While the video is blurry, the homeowner adds that when she went outside, her suspicions were confirmed.
“I went out there and all the mailboxes were open and there was mail up and down the street,” she said.
The debit card she says she was expecting, stolen. She and Home Owners Association President Hugh Durlam say mailbox thefts are becoming more frequent in their community.
“That’s probably one of the number one things we see discussed in our Facebook group is people stealing packages, but missing packages out of the mailboxes,” Durlam said.
And he says he has an idea of how its being done.
“Mail carriers are…their arrow key, the key that they use to open the mailboxes are getting stolen and then these thieves sit and wait for the opportune time and they come out and open up the mail boxes and raid them,” Durlam said.
While Durlam plans to review more surveillance footage from the entrance and exit gates and turn it over to investigators, he and officials want anyone with information to give them a call.
We reached out to Fort Bend County Precinct 1 Constable Chad Norvell who says the issue has gotten so bad throughout the county. they’re getting reports of mailbox thefts almost on a daily basis. He says he’s reached out to Congressman Troy Nells who is putting pressure on the postal service to come up with a solution that may include digital locks.
