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| Steven Besic, owner of “Things and Things” | Facebook |
Federal charges have been filed against a 33-year-old man who allegedly intended to receive a half-pound of methamphetamine by mail last week at his home near Roscoe Village.
The drugs were intercepted by authorities and Steven Besic was arrested minutes after he retrieved a dummy replacement package planted by investigators in a mailbox outside his home last Friday in the 2100 block of West Fletcher, according to a federal complaint signed by a U.S. Postal Inspector.
In a 10-page complaint, the postal inspector said authorities at O’Hare International Airport intercepted an Express Mail package addressed to Besic and his company—“Things and Things”—last Wednesday. After determining the return address and associated phone numbers were bogus, postal inspectors received a search warrant for the package which contained a half-pound of suspected meth, according to the complaint.
Last Friday, postal inspectors created a package that looked like the confiscated shipment and arranged for an undercover investigator dressed as a mailman to deliver the box to Besic’s home. Inside the sham package were two bundles of fake narcotics covered in an invisible layer of dust that would turn purple if touched, a GPS tracker, and a silent alarm that would signal authorities when the package had been opened, a postal inspector said in an affidavit.
Less than an hour after the bogus package was dropped off, covert surveillance officers watched as Besic emerged from the gangway of his home, looked up and down the street, grabbed the shipment, looked up and down the street again, then returned to his residence in the coach house, according to court records.
Two minutes later, authorities received an alarm that indicated the package had been opened. Two minutes after that, investigators broke down the coach house’s front door and “made contact with Besic” inside.
According to court records, Besic’s hands were stained purple by the invisible powder that investigators had placed on the dummy narcotics packages. One bundle of fake meth was found in Besic’s toilet, and another was in a bathroom trash can, investigators said.
While executing the search warrant inside Besic’s home, postal inspectors recovered an ounce of packaged meth that was sitting on a digital scale, $975 cash, four ounces of suspected meth from a nightstand, along with small amounts of MDMA, mushrooms, cocaine base, and several bottles of suspected GHB, according to the affidavit.
Besic is charged with one federal felony count of attempting to possess methamphetamine with intent to distribute. U.S. Magistrate Judge Sheila Finnegan ordered Besic held without bail until his next court date on March 1.
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