Two Bronx residents were caught red-handed mail fishing in Sunnyside last week.
Officers from the 108th Precinct’s Anti-Crime Team were on routine patrol on 47th Avenue and 36th Street just before midnight Friday, Feb. 15 when they observed two young men trying to fish mail out of a U.S. Postal Service mailbox on the corner.
The two men were cuffed and found to be in possession of sticky mouse traps and a shoestring attached to a water bottle, police said.
One of the arrested was a 15-year-old boy who was charged with criminal tampering, which is a felony, along with several other counts, according to an NYPD spokeswoman.
Lucas Crisostomo-Cerrate, 18, of 168th Street in the Bronx was arrested for being a lookout and was charged with criminal tampering, as well as well as several other counts, police said.
Mail fishing has been on the rise for the last year, especially in northeast Queens where the U.S. Postal Service is replacing traditional mailboxes with retrofitted ones to deter the crime where checks are fished out of the box.
The new “Cadillacs” of mailboxes feature a “small slit” measuring three-eighths of an inch to drop mail through as opposed to a larger opening that the traditional mailboxes have.
In neighborhoods such as Sunnyside, where the retrofitted mailboxes have yet to be installed, police warn it is safer to send mail directly from the local Post Office.
