Police in Jiayuguan in northwest China's Gansu Province have arrested a lazy postman who hid more than 3,000 letters and parcels rather than deliver them, the "Lanzhou Morning Post" reports.

The man worked at a post office in the city for six years before the police confronted him about his actions.

Police had been contacted on August 11 when someone reported seeing the postal worker was drunk on a roadside. When police took the postal worker home, they found thousands of shredded letters, including registered ones and telegraphs. They then arrested the postman.

A spokesman for the post office said the employee was an introvert who seldom communicated with his colleagues. He also said the post office would try to determine the recipients of the shredded letters and deliver them.

"We have a zero tolerance approach to any dishonesty," the spokesman was quoted as saying. "We will always seek to prosecute the tiny minority of people who abuse their duties."

This was not the first time that a postal worker was found to have hidden letters instead of delivering them. In 2004, a postman from Shaanxi Province was sentenced for hiding letters after he complained about job exhaustion.

Such cases also have occurred in other countries. A postman in the United Kingdom was jailed for six months after stealing hundreds of letters and packages in search of money to feed his alcohol addiction. A former U.S. Postal Service worker was sentenced to eight months in prison and ordered to pay $1,350 restitution for stealing mail from residents in Minnesota.