Marijuana by mail: Pot users tap post office, FedEx

Some of New York's biggest marijuana busts recently have involved smugglers using the U.S. Postal Service and private delivery firms like FedEx.

One saw $22 million worth of marijuana shipped through FedEx to businesses and homes in the Bronx and New Rochelle. Authorities allege 6,600 pounds of pot passed through the trafficking ring dubbed Operation Green Giant, and 10 people face a bevy of federal charges in the case.

The bust in the fall unfolded after agents caught one of the men with $230,000 at San Francisco International Airport, and FedEx provided records on 330 suspected pot shipments, court records show.

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New York Drug Enforcement Administration Special-Agent-in-Charge James Hunt described the typical marijuana smuggling case as a mix of opportunism and new technology.

Some dealers track their deliveries in real time across the country, playing the odds that the product will seep through cracks in a system handling millions of packages each day. Some bundles ship to unsuspecting homes and businesses, where drug runners intercept them outside front doors.

A $100,000 investment in West Coast weed easily turns into $200,000 when sold at East Coast prices.

“That’s a big budget margin for a drug trafficker,” Hunt said, describing a growing underbelly of “weed connoisseurs” in New York demanding high-quality pot from California, British Columbia and parts of the Pacific Northwest called the Emerald Triangle.

FedEx officials wouldn’t discuss the case that seemingly showed how dozens of pot shipments went unnoticed for more than a year.

“We comply with all applicable federal, state and local regulations, and cooperate with law enforcement authorities in their investigations of criminal activity involving our services or network,” said FedEx spokesman Davina Cole.

Postal service and cartels

More recently, another 12 people were accused of using the Postal Service to ship 220 pounds of marijuana from California to Rochester. The alleged smuggling involved about 1,000 packages sent between August 2015 and earlier this year.

The Postal Service Inspection Service, a federal law enforcement agency, didn’t respond to questions about efforts to curb marijuana smuggling through the mail.

The DEA's Hunt noted that many of the marijuana shipments get through simply due to volume.

"I would be foolish to think we’re getting more than a portion of it," he said. "They could send multiple packages, and the easier you can smuggle and transport something the more difficult it is for law enforcement."

The Postal Service and private delivery companies have systems to target marijuana and drug smuggling, Hunt said, but the DEA generally stays focused on catching the big operations.

"We don’t spend our time doing hit or miss; We’re in the business of investigation," he said.

That means a lot of attention to Mexican cartels, which can turn a few hundred dollars of pot into $2,000-plus stateside. The equation translates to major marijuana profits each year for deadly traffickers like the Sinaloa cartel.

“The Mexican cartels are the Walmarts, and the smaller weed-connoisseurs traffickers are the convenience store,” Hunt said. “Cartels are doing literally billions of dollars in Mexican marijuana even though it is not the same quality as the Emerald Triangle bud.”

Big Apple's pot appetite

Marijuana smuggling offers a case study in supply and demand, and New York City seems to have the highest appetite for pot in the world despite its unlawful trade.

The Big Apple’s marijuana use topped a ranking of global cities in 2017. It consumed about 77 metric tons, or 170,000 pounds, of pot that year, USA Today reported. The next two highest cities were Karachi, Pakistan, and New Delhi, India, at 42 and 38 tons consumed, respectively.

Two other U.S. cities cracked the top 10 list with Los Angeles at No. 4 (36 tons) and Chicago at No. 8 (25 tons).

“The biggest thing for marijuana is that it’s so widely abused… It’s so pervasive there are a lot of people who hold legitimate jobs and go to work and even have families who smoke marijuana,” Hunt said,

He then contrasted marijuana users with users of drugs like heroin and cocaine.

“A lot of marijuana users are not the criminal element…You don’t find the same people like an opiate addict or a crack addict doing stick-ups and robbing people at gunpoint or breaking into houses to buy drugs,” he said.

Public-safety risks exist in the marijuana trade, however, at the crossroads of money and gangs. The recent arrests in the Bronx and New Rochelle, for instance, involved firearms, court records show.

"Gangs protect their turf, and the gang's mission is to protect itself from the other gangs and that's where the weaponry comes in," Hunt said.