Same 3 Men Linked to 2 Robberies : Crime: In separate incidents this month, the suspects bound postal carriers and made off with bags of mail.

The same threesome of gun-toting men may be responsible for two recent robberies of mail carriers in Orange County, postal inspectors said Thursday.

In the most recent case, on Monday, three men reportedly stormed a mail carrier in his truck along his route on Dorset Lane in Costa Mesa at 12:50 p.m.

One man bound the mail carrier’s hands behind his back and forced him at gunpoint to lie face-down in his truck while two other men dumped about 800 pieces of mail into large, black plastic bags.

In Anaheim Hills on April 2, three men approached a letter carrier about noon as he stood outside his Jeep on Morningstar Drive. One man bound the postal employee’s hands and covered his head with a postal sack, U.S. Postal Inspector Pamela Prince said. Two other men dumped trays of mail into large plastic bags, and the men drove off with about 2,500 letters, she said.

Neither mail carrier was injured, Prince said.

In both cases, the robbers fled in a rust-colored Toyota sedan. They are described as 20 to 30 years old and about 5 feet, 8 inches tall.

Police and postal inspectors said that such robbers usually examine the stolen mail for credit cards, checks and credit card numbers.

The robberies bring to eight the number of attacks on postal carriers so far this year in Los Angeles and Orange counties, Prince said.

“It’s not uncommon to have them break in (to a vehicle), but it’s not common to strong-arm” a postal employee, said Santa Ana Police Cpl. Futi Semanu.

Last month, Semanu said, two men beat a postal carrier in Santa Ana with a flashlight and stole several packages from his delivery sack.

The postal inspector’s office is offering a $10,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of anyone connected with the robberies, Prince said.