Page 11 - IAV Digital Magazine #500

iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
PackageFilledWithPrescription NarcoticsDeliveredToCaliforniaHome
By Ben Hooper
June 17 (UPI) -
- A California woman who was expecting a ship- ment of ink
from Amazon op ened a package left on her front porch and was shocked to find the box was filled with opiates and other prescription narcotics.
The Glendale woman said she arrived home from work this week and found the box bearing the Amazon logo on her porch.
The woman said she initially thought the box contained the ink she had ordered from the website, but she instead discovered bot- tles of oxy- codone,
hydrocodone, morphine and other narcotics accompanied by an invoice from the Drug Enforcement Administration.
"There's mor- phine, there's this, there's that, this is really dan- gerous stuff -- and there's a lot of them in there,"
the woman told KABC-TV.
Bill Bodner, DEA special agent in charge in Los Angeles, said a preliminary inves- tigation found the package had originated at a New York phar- macy that enlist- ed the services of a Texas phar- maceutical com-
pany to dispose of the drugs.
Bodner said there was a DEA invoice in the package because the disposal process has to be approved by the federal gov- ernment.
"Let me be clear, this package was not sent by DEA
and these drugs were never in DEA custody," Bodner said.
Bodner speculat- ed there was an error in the ship- ping process.
"Likely, they used a third-party ship- per to ship this package and somehow the shipping labels
were switched at this third-party shipper," Bodner said.
Amazon said an investigation has been opened into how the drugs ended up in an Amazon-labeled box.
Bodner said the DEA probe into the incident is ongoing.
A Texas family experienced a similar
situation earlier this week when a package left at their front door turned out to contain 32 bags of marijuana. The Harris County Sheriff's Office said the residents were not expect- ing a package and were baffled by the delivery.
iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine