Deadly delivery: Illegal drugs sent by mail to Jacksonville neighborhoods

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The FBI is warning about a deadly delivery that could be as close as your neighbor’s mailbox. Illegal drugs are being sent through the post office in Jacksonville including cocaine, meth, and fentanyl.

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24 million packages pass through the U.S. mail every day. The vast majority filled with illegal drugs go undetected. A joint task force consisting of multiple law enforcement agencies is helping postal inspectors stop the contraband from being shipped in the mail.

“We do see a lot of activity in Florida. And for that reason, it’s probably where we have the most task force officers,” Daniel Adame with the USPS Inspection Service said. “We have gotten very good at using intelligence and analytics. To try to put us in the right place at the right time.”

Action News Jax Investigates dug into the numbers and found from 2020-2022, the postal service stopped 19,979 illegal packages in Florida alone. Florida was top in the country to receive cocaine, number one for meth, and number five for fentanyl.

It’s a pain Keyla Morgan knows all too well. Her daughter, Megan Whitaker, had her bright future cut short by illegal drugs at just 29 years old.

“For three days, everything was kind of a blur,” Morgan told Action News Jax’s Robert Grant. “I kept thinking, it’s a bad dream, I’m going to wake up, this hasn’t really happened.”

The night Megan died, she smoked marijuana to help her fall asleep. Unbeknownst to her, it was laced with fentanyl, and she died from an overdose.

“I mean, it’s putting thousands and thousands of people in danger that aren’t even choosing to buy illicit drugs,” Morgan said.

Some of the drugs are stopped in Miami by U.S. Customs and Border Protection long before they get to Jacksonville.

“Our job is to actually find it, and then we route all that information through the authorities,” Alain Rodriguez, with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said.

They found most of the cocaine coming to Jacksonville is from Puerto Rico.

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Action News Jax Investigates spent months sorting through the data and zeroed in on the neighborhoods where large shipments of drugs were seized.

Mayport in the 32233-zip code has the largest seized shipment of cocaine in Northeast Florida. Law enforcement seized a shipment of meth in the 32224-zip code, which includes the University of North Florida. Large amounts of all three drugs were caught coming into the 32210-zip code on the Westside.

“I think drug cartels now have sprouted in a lot of areas that you would traditionally not see them,” Adame said. “It’s not only the major metropolitan areas where the drugs are coming in to.”

Action News Jax reported last year on a major drug bust in Orange Park which included narcotics being shipped through the mail.

READ: Clay County Sheriff’s Office takes down drug operation linked to California, Mexican Cartel

It’s the result of several agencies working together, including the FBI, DEA, Postal Inspection Service, Customs and Border Protection, and local law enforcement agencies. The crackdown brings slight relief to Morgan.

“The grief comes in waves. But it does help to know that I’m speaking out to try and make a difference.”

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