Raleigh postal worker charged in hemp package theft scheme, losses up to $18,000

A Raleigh postal worker is accused of turning a USPS distribution facility into a theft pipeline, with investigators saying hemp packages vanished from the Floretta Place site and losses climbed as high as $18,000.

Marcus Hall, 41, faces charges including larceny by an employee, possession with intent to sell or distribute marijuana, and other drug-related offenses after authorities tied him to a pattern of theft that began in July 2025. Investigators said the shipments were hemp products sent from California, the kind of parcels that can be mailed legally only when they comply with federal, state and local laws.

The losses were estimated at between $7,000 and $18,000, a range that shows how quickly a mail-theft scheme can move beyond a few missing boxes and become a significant business problem. USPS said Hall worked as a mail handler and was still on the rolls when the case surfaced. The USPS Office of Inspector General said Hall had already been arrested at the facility on Feb. 12.

The case, as described in the warrant, read like a coordinated operation rather than an isolated grab. Raleigh police and postal investigators used GPS trackers and surveillance from intended recipients who had already noticed repeated losses and began monitoring shipments themselves. Investigators said they captured a red Mitsubishi Outlander moving packages from the loading dock to the employee parking lot, where the items were transferred to a black Lexus.

Another shipment in January 2026 reportedly involved 20 pounds of hemp flower. Surveillance video tracked that load to a nearby Sheetz, deepening suspicions that the parcels were being diverted before they ever reached customers or retailers waiting on delivery. When officers served the warrant, they allegedly found vacuum-sealed packages in Hall’s car and additional evidence at his home.

The case lands in the middle of a broader postal-security campaign. The United States Postal Inspection Service says it works with local, state and federal agencies on mail-theft investigations, and Project Safe Delivery launched in May 2023 to protect employees, customers and infrastructure from criminal activity and criminal misuse of the mail. In its FY2024 annual report, the inspection service said robberies and mail-theft complaints were down from FY2023, even as it continued to arrest thousands of mail and package thieves each year.

For Wake County residents and small businesses, the message is blunt: a parcel that disappears inside a postal facility can become a high-value theft case, not just a missing delivery.