It's the season of taking for thieves preying on packages sitting on Lamorinda doorsteps.
"It looks to me like they're just driving around, finding packages," said Moraga Police Chief Robert Priebe.
The opportunists are lifting packages from doorsteps and then leaving an empty box from somewhere else behind on the doorstep. A reported theft on Birchwood Drive, Moraga, on Tuesday involved packages left behind with a Lafayette address, Priebe said.
The police chief advised bringing packages inside the moment you notice them, and keeping an eye out for activity on neighbors' doorsteps.
Del Rio-Carter burglaries
A thief or thieves worked a residential neighborhood off St. Mary's Road on Monday afternoon.
A woman on Del Rio Way noticed three packages on her porch at 2:50 p.m. Monday, but did not go to pick them up until 40 minutes later. They were gone. The woman told police she thought several neighbors had had packages stolen.
"The suspect stole the packages, emptied the boxes, and then returned the boxes to other residences in the neighborhood," according to a Moraga police report.
One Del Rio neighbor reported a package stolen from her doorstep between 1:30 and 3:30 p.m. Monday. She had received a call from a neighbor saying that an empty box with the first neighbor's address on it had been left on her doorstep. Reported stolen was $80 worth of camera cases.
That story was repeated in the 1000 block of Carter Drive on Monday afternoon — an empty box with a neighbor's address on it. Reported stolen was $202 worth of cosmetics.
On Sullivan Drive, a couple of miles away, a UPS package containing Sony headphones valued at $30 were stolen between the hours of 12:20 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. Monday.
In Orinda
In Orinda, the bad guys are going after locked mailboxes, particularly in hilly, secluded neighborhoods where the mailbox might be located out of sight from the home. At least a dozen mailboxes have been tampered with in the last six weeks, according to a piece in Lamorinda Weekly.
