Mail theft is on the rise in San Antonio, with crooks using crowbars or other tools to pry open cluster mailboxes at apartments or neighborhoods — sometimes pulling them out of the ground altogether, officials said.

Exact figures were not available but the region has seen a spike in such thefts in recent months, said Michael Martinez-Partida, a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, which investigates the incidents.

“We have seen an increase around the city of San Antonio, usually around the holidays and near tax season and combined with May because people mail gift cards for graduation,” Martinez-Partida said.

On the Northeast Side alone, in and near the Royal Ridge neighborhood, someone broke into seven cluster mailboxes — the aluminum mailboxes that serve newer subdivisions — in a single stormy night in mid-May, according to authorities and area residents. But all areas of the city have reported thefts — from Stone Oak to the South Side — according to police and court records.

“We never had any trouble here at all, until recently,” said Jim Patton, who lives in Royal Ridge and helps keep watch as part of the civilian Royal Ridge Security Patrol. “It’s always been a quiet area. ...That’s hell when you can’t even have mail without someone trying to steal it.”

More Information To prevent mail theft: -Get your mail daily. -If you leave town, request a mail hold or have a friend pick up your mail. -If expecting parcels, have them delivered to a friend’s house where someone will be home or have them shipped to your workplace. -Report mail theft by calling 1-877-876-2455. Source: U.S. Postal Inspection Service

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He watched Wednesday as Postal Service employee Jerrod Williams fixed some of the damaged mailboxes. Patton surmised thieves are also after hail storm insurance claim checks.

Sometimes, there are arrests. Court records show prosecutors filed 52 cases since 2000 against people charged with stolen mail crimes, with three indicted since January of this year. That doesn’t take into account cases where drug charges, or other counts, are filed instead of mail-theft charges because they carry higher penalties.

A single suspect can account for vast amounts of pilfered mail. In 2014, for instance, Linda Mae Ortiz, 40, who has drug charges in her history, was arrested outside the Merry Oaks Apartments on the Southwest Side with more than 2,500 pieces of stolen mail in the stolen car she was in, court records show. She was sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Police often find mail thieves when they get reports of meth labs or other suspicious activity at area motels and officers checking the rooms find mail scattered with drug paraphernalia.

“The two usually go hand in hand,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Sam Ponder, noting crooks often go after mail for checks, credit cards and other things they can use for money to help feed their drug habits.

In January, Boerne police arrested James Joseph Taylor Jr., 42, after he and two accomplices were reportedly seen breaking into cars at a Toyota dealership. The ensuing investigation led authorities to suspect that Taylor has been stealing mail for years.

Postal inspectors were already looking into an incident in which a man resembling Taylor was seen on video Aug. 22, 2015, taking mail from the Savannah Oak Apartments in the 14800 block of Vance Jackson. The man used a key to access the mailboxes, court records said. When Taylor was arrested in January in Boerne, investigators found a briefcase in his truck that contained mail stolen from San Antonio’s 78240 zip code and two Postal Service keys that had been reported missing in 1994 from the Thousand Oaks Post Office on Henderson Pass.

Taylor’s father, now retired, used to work there from 1990 to 2000, court records said. One key opened apartment mailboxes and neighborhood cluster mailboxes. The second key opened padlocks used on blue stand-alone mailboxes.

“The keys accessed any mailbox in San Antonio,” Ponder said.

Taylor was charged with Brittany Snyder and Tracy Cooper with engaging in organized criminal activity.

Taylor was indicted separately in San Antonio on two federal counts of illegal possession of a Postal Service key, each charge punishable by up to 10 years in prison, and three counts of possession of stolen mail, each count carrying a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

After being let out on bail Feb. 12, Taylor tested positive for methamphetamines and his bond was revoked in March, records show. He is now back in federal custody awaiting trial in July. He has pleaded not guilty.

gcontreras@express-news.net

Twitter: @gmaninfedland