Spanish police arrest ex-postman after finding 20,000 letters

The 62-year-old went to work from Monday to Friday. He picked up the mail to be delivered to the central post office and left with the letters. What he then did with the mail is now under investigation.

According to the British newspaper, the unopened envelopes were The Guardian discovered during a renovation of the house where the man lived for a long time. The postman had sold his house in Biar, a village near Alicante. The new residents wanted to renovate the house.

Bins full of mail

The construction crew who then carried out the work found a room with bins full of mail. It turned out to be stacks of unopened letters, bills and important papers.

“There were no packages,” a police spokesman told Spanish newspaper El País. “They are registered and can easily be traced back to the post office.”

Contract not extended

The former resident was quickly arrested and questioned at the police station. In 2013, the ex-postman’s temporary contract was not renewed due to too many “irregularities” in the area where he had to deliver the mail. He is accused of “negligence in the protection of documents”.

And the letters? They are now back at the post office. They remain there until the end of the police investigation, after which a judge determines whether the mail, sent more than ten years ago, will still be delivered.