A 43-year-old Bridgeton man who worked as a delivery contractor at an Amazon warehouse in Logan Township has been sentenced to five years in state prison for stealing packages worth more than $75,000. Akeem Johnson was sentenced Friday as part of a plea agreement, according to the Gloucester County Prosecutor's Office.
Johnson worked for Globus Express, a third-party delivery contractor, according to NJ.com. He was responsible for taking pallets of packages from the Amazon warehouse and delivering them to U.S. Postal Service facilities, a role that put him in direct contact with high volumes of undelivered merchandise moving through the site.
Amazon began investigating Johnson after a large number of packages were reported as not delivered, the outlet's report notes. According to an affidavit, Johnson admitted committing the thefts in May 2021, telling Amazon loss-prevention officials he used another employee's access card to enter the warehouse and take undelivered package pallets meant for USPS facilities, according to Cat Country 107.3.
From a $274,000 Allegation to a Narrower Plea
When Logan Township Police charged Johnson in June 2021, they alleged he had stolen 8,824 Amazon packages valued at $274,483 beginning in November 2020, per the same Cat Country report. Those initial figures came from Logan Township Police's affidavit of probable cause, filed as the case moved through the system.
By the time Johnson accepted his plea agreement, the case had narrowed considerably. He ultimately pled guilty to identity theft for posing as a co-worker and using that employee's facility access card to enter the warehouse, according to West Deptford Patch, with the final valuation set at more than $75,000, police said. It remains unclear whether investigators recovered the missing merchandise or whether restitution was ordered as part of the plea.
The warehouse at the center of the case is Amazon's TEB3 non-sort fulfillment center at 2651 Oldmans Creek Road, which handles large and bulkier shipments across New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, according to FLEX. Fulfillment. The facility sits inside the Pureland Industrial Complex, a 3,000-acre industrial park along the Interstate 295 corridor about 12 miles south of the ports of Camden and Philadelphia, according to Wikipedia's entry on the site.
The Sentence
Johnson received a five-year sentence after pleading guilty to identity theft involving packages valued at more than $75,000.
As part of the sentencing, Johnson also received concurrent terms for two unspecified legal cases out of Cumberland County, police said, though details of those matters were not disclosed. Johnson lives in Bridgeton, in Cumberland County, according to NJ.com's reporting.
A Pattern of Supply-Chain Theft Across New Jersey
The case involved Globus Express, a third-party contractor moving packages to U.S. Postal Service facilities, according to the Cat Country report. In this case, Johnson used another employee's access card to enter the warehouse, investigators said.
New Jersey lawmakers have also moved to close gaps further down the delivery chain. In January 2022, the state upgraded the theft of packages taken directly from residential porches to a third-degree felony statewide regardless of dollar value, a shift Hoodline detailed in its coverage of a Newark mower theft case last month. The Newark case is another example of package theft in New Jersey.
