COEUR d’ALENE — More than 75 incidents of mail theft, involving more than 200 pieces of mail, are being investigated by the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office after a resident reported seeing pieces of mail scattered at the entrance of the Old Farragut Railroad Trail in Athol on Oct. 13.

The resident told a sheriff’s deputy that she was on her way home when she noticed “a large amount of paper” at the entrance and got out of her car to look at it. Upon inspection she noticed it was mail addressed to individuals.

“It’s not uncommon to have several victims associated with a report of mail theft,” KCSO Lt. Stu Miller said. “But this number is a little higher than we normally see.”

Miller spoke to The Press Tuesday morning, and said there are generally multiple victims in a case of mail theft because a perpetrator will go into an area and steal mail from several homes.

Investigators are still uncertain of a time frame for the incidents, although they believe it was sometime between Oct. 10 and Oct. 13.

One of the detectives told Miller, “If it was stolen in one day they were busy.”

During the initial investigation 110 pieces of mail were recovered. Later in the day deputies were called to a scene where additional mail had been dropped in a dirt field - bringing the total count to over 200 pieces of mail.

According to a press release from KCSO, bank and credit card statements, pre-approved credit card offers and other financial documents were “the likely targets.”

“The Sheriff’s Office strongly encourages the identified victims in these cases to contact any and all of your financial institutions and inform them of the theft to help facilitate monitoring your accounts for unusual or unauthorized activity,” the press release states. “It is also highly recommended credit bureaus be notified as well, to activate fraud monitoring and suspicious credit activity warnings by those pre-approved credit card offers.”

Currently detectives have no solid leads on the theft and Lt. Miller said they will be going through each of the cases to notify the victims of the theft that haven’t already been notified. Since the mail is considered evidence it will not be released at this time.

Once the mail can be released, the owners will be notified, states the press release.