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2 Men Arrested for 'Fishing' Mail Out of Inwood Post Box, Police Say

By Carolina Pichardo | January 18, 2017 11:02am
 Police arrested Jeison German, 21 and Raudevin Then, 20, from the Bronx on Tuesday at approximately 1:44 a.m. for
Police arrested Jeison German, 21 and Raudevin Then, 20, from the Bronx on Tuesday at approximately 1:44 a.m. for "mail-fishing," officials said.
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DNAinfo/Carolina Pichardo

INWOOD — The NYPD made two more arrests for "mail fishing" on Tuesday morning, following a spate of incidents uptown.

Jeison German, 21 and Raudelvin Then, 20, of The Bronx were caught using a homemade device to fish mail out of a postal box on the southwest corner of Broadway and Academy Street at approximately 1:44 a.m., police said.

Police caught Then standing in front of the mailbox and opening it while holding "a device consisting of a plastic bottle covered in glue and tied to a length of a string," prosecutors said in their criminal complaint. He held the string and lowered the bottle into the mailbox before pulling out the bottle with four pieces of mail attached to it, according to the complaint.

When police rushed in, Then tossed the device onto the ground — with the mail still attached to it — and fled the scene along with German, according to their criminal complaints. Police recovered the mail and found that none of it was addressed to or mailed by the suspects, according to the complaint.

The men were charged with possession of burglar's tools, petit larceny and criminal possession of stolen property in the fifth degree, prosecutors said. German was released without bail, while Then was granted supervised release. 

Both are due back in court Wednesday, Feb. 8. Their lawyers didn't immediately reply to a request for comment. 

This is the second round of arrests Uptown, according to a spokeswoman for the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.

Police arrested three mail scammers last month for a similar incident at 156th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, after residents spotted several mailboxes with glue along the inside lid to trap letters, according to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.