By Eric Katz – June 3, 2016
The U.S. Postal Service is making it easy for drug traffickers to ship their products into the United States, according to the agency’s top congressional overseer, and lawmakers want to know more about what USPS is doing to stop it.

“As a result,” Chaffetz wrote, “drug traffickers can exploit the absence of stringent security standards in these bilateral agreements, using the Postal Service to make final delivery of their products to the United States.”

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, recently wrote a letter to Postmaster General Megan Brennan accusing the mailing agency of entering into agreements with foreign countries that fail to uphold security standards. The agreements, he said, fail to include measures like tracking, advanced data collection and “other risk management procedures” that would mitigate the risk of importing drugs.

The chairman cited studies from groups like LegitScript, which monitors online pharmacies, and the Lexington Institute think tank as evidence foreign illicit drug producers are increasingly depending on USPS to make shipments. Those studies show mail from China is the primary source for synthetic drugs in the United States, and note that the current structure incentivizes drug traffickers to use the Postal Service rather than private companies that must have international packages screened by Customs and Border Protection and the Transportation Security Administration.

More / Source: Postal Service Has a New Role: Unwitting Drug Courier – Oversight – GovExec.com