8 Held, 3 Sought in Drug-Sales Probe at Van Nuys Post Office

Postal authorities Thursday began arresting 11 people they said had been selling drugs while on the job at the Van Nuys Post Office.

The arrests capped a five-month undercover investigation at the facility, which coordinates mail delivery for the San Fernando Valley, postal Inspector Dave Breault said.

Ten of the 11 people named in the federal arrest warrant are current postal employees, and the other is a former employee, Breault said. Eight of those sought--all of them men working as mail handlers, clerks or temporary employees--had been arrested by Thursday evening, postal Inspector Jim Griffin said.

The workers sold drugs, mostly cocaine in “both rock and powder” forms, only among themselves, Breault said. Mail delivery was not affected, he said.

The arrested workers were to be held overnight pending an appearance this morning before a federal magistrate in Los Angeles to answer to charges of distributing a controlled substance, Breault said.

The investigation began last year after employees tipped postal authorities that “we had a problem at the post office,” he said.

Breault called the group implicated in the investigation “an extremely small number” of the about 1,800 employees at the Van Nuys Post Office.

Most of the drug sales involved “small amounts of cocaine” primarily for consumption of the buyers, Griffin said.