Have We Now Gone Back To WWII Censorship?

I received this cover today 10/24/2022. It was sent from Stavely Alberta Canada.
Ii contained a single stamp in a small glassine. It is a standard size envelope 6-1/2 inches long.

It was opened and thoroughly gone through.

Have we now gone back to WWII censorship between Canada and the USA?

I assume they were looking for merchandise which would violate UPC rules for First Class mail. It might also be a drug related thing but hard to believe they would be going through small envelopes when fentanyl is flowing through the southern border.
Don

It would be nice to have a scan of the other side also. Not easy to draw-out much from one side.

Any definitive indication which country did this?
And which department - postal, customs, DEA, etc?

I see what looks like possibly Homeland Security? That's the craziest thing I've ever seen from the modern era. Was there anything outright suspicious about it? You really must show the front

It is Customs and Border Protection tape.

I have also had envelopes of stamps from Canada ripped apart by US Customs & Border Protection.

Not sure what they are looking for. Seriously cannot think of something which could be smuggled in an envelope. Drugs would be too bulky in an envelope. It does remind of WWII censorship, envelopes with letters would actually be searched and read by the government.

I get stamps from all over the world and none of the other countries get searched. Only Canada.

It's actually kind of surprising this is the first report that I have seen on forums/boards.

Customs can and will go through anything that comes across the border. Just try and say "no, you can't go through my luggage" if you get chosen for a physical check. They'll pick people that act suspicious or fit a profile and throw in a few random. And the old US Customs profile for physical checking once included ALL single males of any ethnicity in any kind of sports car returning from Mexico. Not used anymore because even families with little kids have been caught smuggling drugs.

Since I think this was too small to include a fake Prada handbag, the obvious guess is that they were looking for drugs. Either your envelope picked up some chemical odor on the way (Bad, bad envelope!) or there is a perhaps a Dark Web shipper operating out of somewhere around Stavely or even Alberta. And drugs can be hidden inside cardboard or disguised as cardboard or paper, assuming that was in there. A lot of narcotics can be in liquid form and with the right solvent, can be removed from paper or cardboard.

tstmax, can you post an example of one or some of yours?

The bottom of the photo suggests that the mailpiece was thick, so USPS may have treated it as a parcel and referred it to CBP for mandatory duty inspection. See:
https://help.cbp.gov/s/article/Arti...nguage=en_US

They are looking for fentanyl. The glassine would be a trigger since fentanyl powder is often packaged that way. Fentanyl is being trafficked in all quantities and because a standard dose of the drug is a tiny one milligram a first-class envelope can still hold a dangerous and profitable quantity. A gram of powder gets $150-200 on the street. A smuggler could send a thousand of similar pieces of mail and if 10% are seized they have still achieved their purpose. It only takes the cost of postage and the envelope if you even pay for those two things. One of the DEA package profiles involves first class mail envelopes and flats.

Here is the front of the cover with my address removed.
With only 1 stamp in a small glassine inside it felt almost like the envelope was empty.

Obviously no drug content inside.

CBP suspicions were awakened by the 1 cent postage overpayment for the Canada to US rate!

That envelope just screams, "There is something in here more than just a letter", with the "Do Not Bend". I would be willing to take a chance that it will arrive fine if it were simply a stamp in a glassine, no cardboard, and no 'advertising' on the outside, assuming it was only worth a few $$$'. I have been turned down, in the past by the seller, to have him send it that way. I bought a couple of stock pages at a Canadian auction and it was mailed to me with no problem at all about 3 weeks ago. And it was clearly something more than a letter, but wasn't opened and searched. It was in a thick envelope, not a small box.

RE: glassines

Having a bundle of those in small sizes apparently raises questions nowadays. I recently got a package that included stamps in tiny ziplock-style plastic bags with no problems. Those were once drug dealer favorites, maybe still are. The tiny sizes are still good for sorting fishhooks, though.

LSD on paper (a tab) is not; with multiple doses not a problem.

Edit:




Yes, for small quantities of various drugs.

More histrionics than I would have expected for evidence of US Customs doing its job.

What a lovely piece of modern postal history!

John