A man is in jail after police connected him to dozens of alleged mail thefts in Roswell and Milton, Channel 2 Action News reported.
Ian Mateo Smith faces 33 counts of theft by taking in connection with the numerous incidents.
33 Counts of Mail Theft. That's what this #Roswell man is facing. Today at 4:15, how police say they tied him to the thefts and how one man realized he was one of the victims. pic.twitter.com/cjISNoz7kq
— Mike Petchenik (@Mike_Petchenik) September 4, 2019
Phil Juravel told the news station he noticed he hadn’t received any mail at his home off Red Maple Lane in Milton. He said he checked with his neighbors, and they said they hadn’t gotten their mail, either.
“There’s only five houses and everybody said, ‘Wait a second, we didn’t get any mail, either,’” Juravel told Channel 2.
Police in both cities said they received several reports of missing mail.
“We got a number of initial reports of people finding mail lying on the ground in neighborhoods and we were able to track that mail to specific victims,” Roswell police spokesman Capt. Charles Barstow told Channel 2.
He said the case started coming together when deputies in Forsyth County reached out and said they had pulled over Smith during a traffic stop.
“(They) found a number of mail items in the backseat that didn’t belong to the driver,” Barstow said.
Investigators said Smith drove through neighborhoods at night, opened mailboxes and took the mail out, Channel 2 reported. Detectives tied him to at least 18 mail thefts in Milton and several more in Roswell.
Smith was booked into the Fulton County jail Aug. 23 and released two days later on a $33,000 bond, jail records show.
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