IndianaLocalNews

Strange packages from China go beyond envelopes of seeds

Jon Zimney/95.3 MNC

You’re hearing more and more stories about people receiving strange packages in the mail from China.

Many Hoosiers say they have gotten packages of seeds, which state conservation experts are urging you not plant because the seeds could contain some sort of invasive species of plant.

“It might be tempting to put this into some soil to see what happens, but there’s a lot of damage that can cause,” said Don Robison, seed administrator for the Office of Indiana State Chemist. “We don’t know what these seeds are, and there is potential for doing serious harm.”

It seems it might be more than just seeds in the mail. Aleks Gifford lives in downtown Indianapolis and said he and his wife also got a strange package in the mail this week that appeared to have come from somewhere in China.

“It was a little, vinyl mail pouch. It was like a three-to-four-inch rectangle. We had two of these show up the same day,” he said. “My wife, who buys a lot of crap online, I called her asking her if she had ordered anything from China and she had no clue what it was.”

So Gifford decided to open the pouches and discovered packets of what appears to be some sort of herbal tea, leaves, and twigs. He said the labels on the packets were all in Chinese. Gifford inspected the packaging further and figured out the packages came from Shanghai.

“It had our address on the package but didn’t have our name on it, just our mailing address,” Gifford added. “We tried to figure it out. We check through Amazon and other service providers and none of them had any orders or shipments come to us. It just randomly showed up.”

Gifford decided that it was an unsolicited package and decided to throw it out.

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2 comments

Thor August 3, 2020 at 3:09 pm

That herbal tea could be just as dangerous as the seeds and should be burned at the least and not thrown out. They may contain fungus or mold that could be aimed at destroying agriculture. Sending it to a land fill is the wrong answer.

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Carman Greenlee August 13, 2020 at 4:21 pm

Funny thing is……we have been getting CRAP from China since about May of this year, not just China either. And we have never ever ordered anything from anywhere!!!!!! we have never shopped on Ebay or Amazon and never will. we used to RTS the packages but now we have them in a box unopened hoping someday to find out what the heck is going on. I hand wrote the Indiana State Attorney General’s office a four page letter months ago and have not heard jack from them. VERY DISAPPOINTED and have lost faith in the IAG office. wasted tax dollars once again on this position of government. Set out to say good luck on ever finding out the real truth about the seeds etc.

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