When you send a package through the U.S. Mail, you might not give much thought to who is handling it. But a local postal worker is accused of swiping several priority mail parcels that contained diamonds and jewelry inside.

Authorities say Jeremy Lieberman, of Greece, admitted to stealing valuable packages from the mail distribution center.

Every day, thousands of packages pass through this postal service distribution center on Lyell Avenue. And it is there that federal investigators say postal employee Jeremy Lieberman saw an opportunity to make some extra cash. He worked there handling priority mail packages. But according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court, Lieberman was rifling through the parcels that he determined had valuable items inside.

Special agents used closed circuit surveillance cameras to watch Lieberman’s every move over the course of two months and say on several occasions they saw him chase specific boxes down the moving conveyor belt.

John Field, Assistant U.S. Attorney, said, “So typically what they’d notice him do was he’d pick the package up and shake it and try and determine what was inside of it and based on what was stolen, we know he was focusing on things that were being delivered either to or from jewelry stores or diamond dealers. Things of that nature.”

Authorities estimate Lieberman stole tens of thousands of dollars in diamonds and precious metals.
The U.S. Postal Service’s Office of Inspector General began investigating after getting complaints of packages that had not made it to their destinations. In a statement, a spokesperson tells I-Team 10, “ Incidents of this nature are relatively rare. However, when our agents do hear of these allegations, we take them very seriously and we do investigate them thoroughly.”

via I-Team 10 Investigation: Postal worker accused of theft