CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Online shopping is at an all time high this holiday season and package thieves know that those orders will be heading to your doorstep. A Chicago woman warns of her experience.
Over the weekend, a young woman encountered a man in the lobby of her Gold Coast apartment building. He was carrying bags of packages and she said he wasn’t a postal employee or even Santa Claus; and that he didn’t even need to use a chimney to enter the building.
"He asked me to buzz him in, because he said UPS, and I was like, okay I will let you in," said the young woman named Michelle.
Michelle asked to not use her last name, but hopes others hearing this story will be more careful in who they let into their apartment buildings and hopes to share this man’s methods.
"Because I am in the first apartment, it is the first one that comes up on the directory, I have tons...I have Amazon call, FedEx call, everybody call," she said.
Michelle said she had been expecting a package so she went down to check and saw the man with garbage bags full of packages. When she confronted him, he took off and that’s when she and several neighbors joined forces to follow him for several blocks, before Chicago Police arrived and took him into custody.
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Detectives told WBBM Newsradio that it will be up to the State's Attorney whether the package thief will be charged with property theft or burglary. Officers said that package thieves rarely face federal charges, because of a shortage of postal inspectors in the city to investigate.