Pharmaceutical Drug Heists on a Scale the Sopranos Would Love
First, the good news. In 2010 there were only 49 cargo thefts of drugs. Now the bad news: the average heist netted the thieves almost $4 million. (At $3.78 million per theft, drug heists were triple the value-per-incident of freight thefts of tobacco products, which came in second.) In one successful robbery of a Connecticut warehouse, the thieves made off with 70 pallets of drugs valued at $75 million.
Most of the stolen drugs end up shipped to Latin America or sold to online pharmacies.
Wouldn’t it be easier just to steal diamonds?
It must be easy to fence these drugs. Otherwise, people wouldn’t go to all the trouble to steal them.
This report refers to theft of freight cargo. I found it surprising that the value per incident approached $4 million. I’ve seen speculation that some of these were inside jobs since these drugs are not necessarily labeled. How else would a thief know which to steal.
Amazing. It makes total sense, but I never would have thought to steal truckloads of prescription drugs. I guess if it is worth money, it is worth it for someone to steal it.