Seventeen Atlanta metro area postal workers have been accused of taking bribes to move cocaine via the mail.

The postal workers allegedly used special addresses to mark packages meant to be delivered to drug-trafficking personnel, believing that the packages contained kilos of cocaine. In reality, the drugs were fake and the drug-trafficking personnel were actually informants acting in support of a federal drug sting operation.

John Horn, the U.S. Attorney who announced the indictment of the 16 of the 17 postal workers, condemned their alleged decisions as irresponsible and selfish. "For cash in their pockets... [they] were willing to endanger themselves and the residents on their routes and bring harmful drugs into the community,” said Horn.

The 17 suspects were arrested last Wednesday and appeared before a federal magistrate.

“The allegations contained in these federal indictments are disturbing to say the least,” said David LeValley, the agent in charge of the FBI’s Atlanta office. The charges were a “blatant abdication of the public trust,” he added.

Federal indictment documents indicate that the sting operation began as early as February 2016. In their operations to deliver specially marked drug packages in the mail, the postal workers stand accused of accepting extra money for the deliveries and recruiting their co-workers into the operation. The suspects' ages range from as young as 25 to as old as 63.

Despite being federal employees, members of the United States Postal Service have been accused of transporting drugs before. In January of this year, two postal workers in Pennsylvania were charged with bribing public officials and straying off their postal routes to deliver cannabis to marijuana organizations for money.

The inconsistent mail screening process has also allowed an untold amount of postal workers to become unwitting drug transporters, according to an experiment by LegitScript. The consulting firm was able to make 29 purchases from illegal pharmacies operating in India. Anyone with a computer, it seemed, could get their hands on illicit prescription drugs—including deadly fentanyl.

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