Approved ~ MJM
LIGHTHOUSE POINT, Fla. – An observant Lighthouse Point police officer spotted an SUV taking a bit too long of what would usually be the amount of time to drop mail in an outside drop box.
An arrest report said that it was 11:30 p.m. Tuesday night when the white Honda CRV lingered next to drop-off mail boxes on the east side of the United States Postal Office at 2091 N.E. 36th St.
With 5 days to the election, they aren’t just ordinary mailboxes, they are also ballot boxes. On any given day, watching a postal service employee emptying mailboxes, you’ll see plenty of mail-in ballots.
That’s what police say they thought 28-year-old Junior Alexander Cabral and 20-year-old Vladimir Cabral-Cuevas, both of Opa-Locka, were after.
The Lighthouse Point officer said he watched the pair in the SUV spend 3 or 4 minutes near the boxes. Recently, all LHPPD officers had been made aware that those specific drop boxes had been subject to theft over the past year.
As the officer approached the Honda in his patrol car, the driver started to leave.
He did stop the vehicle and said he saw the passenger, identified later as Alexander Cabral, shoving something between the seat and the center console of the car. The officer also saw a bag with a small red bottle wrapped with duct tape and a rope attached to it. The officer said it appeared to be some kind of homemade device that could be used to steal mail.
At the post office Thursday, people had mixed feelings about using the blue boxes.
Rebecca Heilman said she doesn’t feel safe putting mail in the drop off. “Anyone can take it out.”
Another person we spoke with said they thought it was unlikely that the mail would be tampered with and they had put their mail-in ballot in a similar box in Pompano Beach.
In 2016 during the election, we showed you homemade devices crooks used to fish inside boxes and pull up mail to get it out.
U.S. Postal Inspector Bladisimir Rojo showed us a variety of homemade devices when we interviewed him in 2016.
One device was created with a weight attached to a rope with duct tape facing out.
“They drop it in the box with the goal to have the mail stick to the tape. And then they pull it out.”
Continued…