The Smoking Gun
April 20,2010
Moving" Express Mail box contained groggy mammal in homemade cage
APRIL 20--Usually, when U.S. postal inspectors seek a search warrant to
open a suspicious package, they are expecting to find illegal narcotics
inside. But when agent J. David McKinney recently took possession of an
Express Mail box, he knew that the contraband inside was not likely of
the powdered variety. Because "the package was moving," according to a court
affidavit filed April 15 in U.S. District Court in Roanoke, Virginia.
After determining that the return address on the 10-pound, 13-ounce box
was phony, McKinney obtained permission from a federal magistrate to open
the parcel, which sat on his desk and "moved periodically." Inside, as
seen in the evidence photos on the following pages, McKinney discovered
a live ferret in a homemade wire cage. The box, destined for someone in
Puerto Rico, also contained ferret food, some "ferret dietary supplement," and
a box of Children's Bendaryl, with one tablet missing, according to an inventory
sheet. Presumably, the ferret--who appeared groggy when the package
was opened--was given the allergy medicine as a makeshift sedative by the
unknown shipper.
McKinney told TSG it was the first time in his 20-year
career that he intercepted a live animal destined for the U.S. postal system
(it is illegal to distribute such "non-mailable animals"). McKinney added
that he was relieved, upon opening the package, to find a ferret, and not
a snake, inside. His affidavit describes a previously unreported incident
in which an eight-foot python (seen
here) was sent via Express Mail to a Kansas address ("the snake was
discovered loose with the mail in the Postal Truck," according to McKinney).
The reptile had been mailed from the same Lynchburg post office where the
ferret was deposited April 5. The ferret is now a ward of Roanoke's animal
control office and, if deemed healthy, will be offered for adoption. |
