Man suspected of running drug trafficking scheme through the Post Office is arrested in Minas Gerais

A man suspected of running a drug trafficking scheme through the Post Office was arrested in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais.

The suspect, a 28-year-old civil engineer, was arrested this Monday (19) in the central south region of Belo Horizonte after receiving a package from the Post Office containing a drug known as skunk. Upon seeing the agents, the suspect tried to get rid of the package by throwing it into the air, but the package was recovered by the police.

“In his house there were more quantities, of other varieties. In a desperate attempt, he screamed, and his frightened girlfriend threw drugs down the toilet. Some were discarded and others returned. There were also narcotics in the sewage tank,” said police chief Davi Moraes, who is in charge of the investigations.

The police seized 140 points of LSD and ecstasy, marijuana and skunk, a type of adulterated and “super-potent” marijuana, as well as more than R$4,000 in cash.

According to the Civil Police of Minas Gerais (PCMG), the arrest in the act was carried out by the corporation's intelligence and monitoring service together with the investigative work carried out by the State Department for Combating Drug Trafficking (Denarc) and exchanges of information with the sector of Correios Intelligence.

According to the head of the Denarc division, delegate Rodolfo Tadeu Machado, the method of distributing the drugs would be a type of “gourmet trafficking”, in the south zone of the capital, with the drugs being received via a delivery service. The suspect used his privileged social status to avoid arousing suspicion.

“The neighborhood he used to use was Cidade Jardim. He was a person above suspicion. He is a 28-year-old man, from the upper middle class, and he used his social status to distribute drugs. By purchasing and receiving orders through delivery companies, he made it difficult for preventive agencies to act, as he knew it would be difficult for him to be approached transporting drugs. And, if this occurred, always in small quantities, posing as a user”, he detailed.

According to delegate Moraes, the work is an offshoot of an operation recently carried out by Denarc, with support from the PCMG Dog Operations Coordination, at the Correios distribution center in the capital. “Since then, we have been monitoring it. Yesterday, we realized that this delivery had taken place and we set up police action to verify the information,” he says.

Also according to Moraes, the suspect's 38-year-old girlfriend was a witness and, at the police station, reported that the man, through his contacts on communication apps, sold substances to acquaintances and people in his social circle. As for distribution to end consumers, in the Cidade Nova neighborhood and surrounding areas, Moraes adds that it was carried out on foot by the person being investigated and some picked them up at his house.

“He tried to maintain a network of clientele he knew, believing he was safer that way, but the information states that he had already made contact with more than 400 people”, adds the delegate, stating that the suspect had not been discovered until then.

“He tried all the time to pretend to be a user. Afterwards he ended up saying that he just wanted to do the sharing among friends, but that in itself would be trafficking”, he concludes.

Investigations continue to identify who the drug suppliers were, as well as the users.