A good friend of mine spent a few weeks of the summer in Amsterdam. Whilst there, he shipped some hash packed in coffee back to another friend in the states. Today, the package arrives. Empty. With a yellow US Customs tag attached to it. No cops came to ask questions about the package. No call from customs saying “We know what you did!” But I fear that the other shoe will drop shortly.
Obviously, this was not a wise thing to do. And obviously, my friend may find himself in a great deal of trouble. But does anyone have specific experience with this sort of thing? How bad could this get, potentially? On some paranoid level, I’m worried that people I know will be branded as terrorists and enemies to the government.
I’ve known people who’ve tried the same thing as your friend. I don’t remember if a package even arrived, but there were no visits from customs or the police. This is, of course, not to say that the police never follow up on such illegal activities, because I have no idea what customs policy is. I am, however, pretty sure that the Amsterdam police and customs agents are reasonably hip to the fact that folks often attempt to send goodies out of the country, and are particularly hip to the use of coffee to mask suspicious odors. Perhaps this kind of thing happens with such frequency and in such insignificant amounts that it’s more trouble than it’s worth to follow up on cases.
I wouldn’t worry about it. Cops don’t operate that way. What probably happened is, some unscrupulous postal employees are enjoying a free block of hash, compliments of your friend.
The same thing happened to some stupid friends of mine several years back. They visited California (we lived in Virginia at the time) and sent back a package with around a pound of marijuana, some LSD, and ecstasy, I think. It arrived empty, with a note saying “No goodies for you!” Obviously, the guys at the post office figured out what they were up to, and decided to help themselves. What were we going to do, report them for stealing our illegal drugs?
Good point, Ferrous. I didn’t think the fuzz would be breaking down doors if they haven’t already, but it makes me breath easier to hear (read?) someone else say (type?) it.
If the cops were setting you up, they’d have left the hash in the package and busted you after it arrived. What would be the point of breaking down the door now? To arrest you for possession of a box that once contained hash?
On the other hand, how many people might try to screw someone over by sending them some illegal goodies? You’d have to prove that it was sent with the addresee’s consent.
You wanna know the stupidest case of Customs Gone Bad? Last November-ish, I mailed some Canadian candy to a Doper who was living in Mississippi at the time. Smarties, Caramilk bars, and Aero bars or something else that I can’t remember now, all in Halloween-sizes.
It arrived, having been opened and picked over. The Smarties boxes were all opened and then taped shut, and the Caramilk bars were GONE.
Yup. Apparently, the secret of the Caramilk must stay within Canada.
You have to be careful about that sort of thing. Canadian candy has dangerous tendencies. One bite of those Caramilk bars, and all of a sudden, American’s are riding mooses, playing hockey, and blathering on about “socialized medicine.” The customs guys were really doing us all a favor.
When I was a student at Nottingham, England, my 'rents sent me a care package with assorted candy and stuff, including 5 slim-jims. (Pre-packaged, heavily processed beef-type product, similar to beef jerky). I mean, is there any real beef between the salt and preservatives?
They also gave me instructions on you to petition Customs to get it back. Yeah, right.
As for contraband and candy – If your mail gets sniffed either by doggy or electronic device, and the alarm is sounded they look through it carefully. I’ve seen a guy at an airport detained very briefly because a drug sniffing dog got excited about the bran muffin in his pocket. Chocolat might excite the sniffers too, in which case they will open boxes of Smarties in case the boxes aren’t really filled with Smarties (i.e. there was a case where a drug dealer carried drugs inside tampon applicators and the tampon box was glued shut to look new and unopened). Evidentally, checking the box of Smarties was hard work that made them hungry.
I do know someone (back in highschool) who successfully mailed his sister a couple of Dutch doobies. For weeks they kept expecting a SWAT team to come charging through their door. He mail them from Europe, but after he’d left the Netherlands, and he mailed them in a regular envelope, not in a package. I’m sure that ALL packages mailed home by tourists in Amsterdam get scrutinized.
If customs has to open a package, they’ll reseal it with the customs stickers. If your package was just opened and re-taped shut, it was probably theft.
We’ve had packages opened and have had the contents partially removed (stolen) and then sent on it’s way. We also had packages go completely missing. We contact the U.S. Postal Inspection Service who asked “was it sent to California or Nevada?” Yup. “Oh, we’ve had a lot of bulk mail thefts in those states.” At that time, they’d been having problems at sorting stations with petty theft and entire bags of mail had gone missing as well.
There’s precious little you can do about mail theft other than report it. The USPS had us fill out some forms about our missing stuff and that was the last we heard.