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'Another thing to hit the working man': Hayward apartments repeatedly hit by mail thieves with postal keys
Mail thieves armed with postal keys have been targeting a Hayward apartment complex repeatedly in the past few months. "I understand it's not a violent theft, but you got all these people that live here, they work hard for their money, and it's just another thing to hit the working man," the property manager told KTVU.
HAYWARD, Calif. - Mail thieves armed with postal keys have been targeting a Hayward apartment complex repeatedly in the past few months.
"This one key can open up all these boxes," Tim Gallegos, property manager at the Orange Tree apartment complex on Manon Avenue, told KTVU.
Thieves with master keys have stolen mail at least six times there since April, four of them within the past couple of weeks.
"They took it from a mail carrier and then they either cut their own copies or they hand them out to each other," Gallegos said of the keys the thieves have been using.
Each time, surveillance video caught the thefts in the middle of the night. The thieves helped themselves to whatever they could find.
"Identity. All the stuff, credit cards, your DMV, everything," Gallegos said.
He says Hayward police told him they could do little unless they caught them in the act and referred him to postal inspectors.
"I understand it's not a violent theft, but you got all these people that live here, they work hard for their money, and it's just another thing to hit the working man," he said.
One video shows a man and a woman walking into the complex at 6 a.m. Sunday. For five minutes, they used a key to open mailboxes and stuffed the stolen letters into bags.
"We take it very seriously. Each one of these are federal offenses, they're felonies," said U.S. Postal Inspector Jeff Fitch.
Fitch said, although local police might have better odds at catching thieves in the act, the key thing is sharing videos to either the police or postal inspectors who investigate mail-carrier robberies.
"The video they have, we want, and especially if we've got somebody using a key. Because our concern would be the possibility that maybe those keys came from one of these robberies," Fitch said.
Mail theft can be reported 24 hours a day to local police or U.S. postal inspectors at 877-876-2455.
Henry Lee is a KTVU crime reporter. E-mail Henry at Henry.Lee@Fox.com and follow him on Twitter @henrykleeKTVU and www.facebook.com/henrykleefan