Glendale woman erroneously receives oxycodone, morphine, other drugs in package ordered from seller on Amazon

GLENDALE, Calif. (KABC) -- A Glendale woman received a startling and unwelcome surprise when she opened a package from a third-party seller on Amazon that was left on her front porch.

"It was on backorder and I was very happy when I came home from work last night and this box was waiting for me," the woman said.

She was expecting to find only the ink pad she had ordered. But when she opened the box, she found something else inside besides ink: seven bottles of powerful narcotics, including oxycodone, hydrocodone and morphine - along with an invoice from the Drug Enforcement Administration.

"There's morphine, there's this, there's that, this is really dangerous stuff -- and there's a lot of them in there," she explained.

The woman did not wish to be identified, however, she is a relative of an Eyewitness News employee.

She now wants to know how a bag with hundreds of powerful pills ended up in her order.

"Let me be clear, this package was not sent by DEA and these drugs were never in DEA custody," said Bill Bodner, special agent in charge in Los Angeles.

Bodner says a pharmacy in New York was disposing the drugs through a Texas pharmaceutical company, a process that needs to be approved by the government, which is why the DEA form was included.

But he suspects something went wrong in the delivery end.

"Likely, they used a third-party shipper to ship this package and somehow the shipping labels were switched at this third-party shipper," Bodner said.

Amazon says the weight of the package when it was shipped is consistent with an ink pad. The shipping company, UPS, says it is conducting an investigation and issued a written statement to Eyewitness News.

"UPS takes all compliance obligations very seriously, including that of opioids and other controlled substances and regulated goods. UPS operates in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations and does not tolerate the use of its services for any illegal activity."

The DEA is also investigating how the drugs ended up in a package at a home in California instead of its intended location in Texas.

"The type of drugs that were in this package, they are very dangerous. So we're going to make sure that there's no nefarious angle to this and hopefully we can just chalk it up to a mistake," Bodner said.

Clarification: This story has been updated to reflect that the package was sent from a third-party seller and shipper and not directly from Amazon.