Pawn shops in the Cash America chain sent packages including precious jewelry to a repair and refurbishment center Fort Worth, Texas, but starting in 2011, many packages never reached their destination. Why was that? It took a two-year investigation to find the culprit, a worker at a processing and distribution center in North Texas. He pleaded guilty this week in federal court.

Investigators found the culprit when they discovered that he was on duty as a truck driver at the time thefts occurred. The postal service has an Office of Inspector General, and agents followed the driver as he left his route and went back to his home. A GPS tracker on the man’s truck showed that someone drove it to a Fort Worth pawn shop where someone happened to have sold coins and jewelry worth almost $2,000.

Stealing jewelry from pawn shop envelopes certainly was lucrative: investigators watched the man’s finances, and found that he deposited more than $42,000 from the sale of ill-gotten jewelry in one six-month period. He made about $16,000 from his postal service job during the same six months.

After all that, the man pleaded guilty to one count of possession of stolen mail. He will be sentenced in February.

Postal Worker Pleads Guilty In $450K Jewelry Theft Case [CBS Dallas-Fort Worth]

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