Two overnight workers at a UPS distribution hub in Doral are facing felony charges after investigators say they spent months secretly rerouting stolen electronics through the very delivery system they were supposed to protect. Jose Divine Fernandes Correia, 52, and Ruth Cristaldo, 53, worked side by side on the night reload shift, allegedly using their access to strip and swap shipping labels so that iPhones, Samsung phones, MacBooks and other high-value gear ended up at addresses of their choosing instead of their intended customers.
Fernandes Correia, who lives in Pembroke Pines but worked at the UPS facility at 13350 NW 17th Street in Miami-Dade, held a job as a package handler, while Cristaldo worked as an Overgoods clerk, a role tasked with processing packages that get separated from their original paperwork, misplaced, or damaged inside the hub, according to WPLG Local 10. That pairing of roles, station reports note, gave the two workers the exact combination of access needed to intercept targeted shipments and quietly send them back out under new identities. As NBC 6 South Florida reports, the investigation began after UPS security and the Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office started looking into complaints from multiple shippers about missing packages.
Surveillance Footage Captured the Relabeling Scheme
According to arrest reports cited by NBC 6, surveillance footage showed Fernandes Correia removing tracking-number labels and taking electronics out of targeted packages before discarding the original boxes. Cristaldo then allegedly created fresh shipping labels and repacked the stolen electronics into new boxes destined for delivery, effectively laundering the stolen goods back into UPS's legitimate delivery stream. Investigators said the missing merchandise included Apple and Samsung phones, tablets and laptops that had originally been addressed to legitimate companies.
Two specific intercepted packages illustrate the scale of the alleged operation. One altered package was found to contain 40 Apple iPhones and two Samsung Galaxy phones worth around $45,000 combined, per arrest reports relayed by NBC 6. Another held 10 Apple MacBook laptops and three Bose headphones valued at roughly $10,000, a shipment that, per Local 10's reporting, had actually been delivered before authorities managed to intercept it.
Hundreds of Labels, Two Miami Addresses
UPS security determined that Cristaldo had created more than 198 shipping labels for packages funneled to two separate addresses in Miami, with records on that pattern dating back to April 2025, the arrest reports state. When UPS security searched the facility further, they found at least 10 more packages stashed there, and the company's own security team put the total estimated losses at more than $100,000. That figure lines up with statutory thresholds prosecutors are relying on: under Florida Statute 817.034, organized fraud involving property valued at $50,000 or more is a first-degree felony carrying up to 30 years in prison and a $10,000 fine, while grand theft of property between $20,000 and $100,000 under Florida Statute 812.014 is a second-degree felony punishable by up to 15 years.
Both Fernandes Correia and Cristaldo were arrested and booked into jail on charges of organized fraud of $50,000 or more and grand theft, according to arrest reports. Both were expected to appear in bond court Friday afternoon. It remains unclear from available reporting whether investigators have identified anyone connected to the two Miami receiving addresses, how long the relabeling scheme ran before it was detected, or whether other commercial shippers beyond those already named in court filings were affected.
Part of a Wider Pattern at South Florida UPS Facilities
This isn't the first time a Miami-Dade UPS operation has been hit by an inside job. In a $55K Rolex sting in June, a Miramar UPS driver working out of a Hialeah distribution center was arrested after UPS security and Miami-Dade police ran a joint sting using bait boxes fitted with GPS trackers and exploding dye packs. And in May, three teenage workers at a Hialeah UPS Store were charged with second-degree grand theft for allegedly diverting more than 80 customer shipments worth $40,000 and reselling the goods online, intercepting packages before they were even scanned into the delivery system.
The Doral case also fits into a much larger national surge in high-value cargo theft. Supply chain cargo theft losses across North America hit $304.6 million in the second quarter of 2026 alone, more than double the same period last year, driven largely by targeted thefts of commercial technology and electronics, according to Verisk CargoNet. Total cargo theft losses across the U.S. and Canada reached an estimated $725 million in 2025, a 60% jump over 2024, as the average value stolen per incident climbed 36% to nearly $274,000, the firm reported. Nationally, an estimated 104 million packages worth roughly $15 billion were stolen in 2024, with UPS accounting for about 20% of all stolen parcels, second only to Amazon, according to SafeWise.
