One of the Biggest Drug Heists in History

“Thieves Make Off With $75M Worth of Medication.” Asbury Park Press. 17 March 2010: A13. Print.

What is being described as one of the biggest pharmaceutical heists in history occurred just before Sunday morning of March 14th. Eli Lilly and Company is located in an industry park in Enfield, Connecticut. Authorities believe that the thieves scaled the exterior of the building, cut a hole in the roof, and then lowered themselves to the floor of the pharmaceutical warehouse. The thieves then disabled the alarms and spent at least an hour loading the drugs into their vehicle. The wholesale value of the drugs is estimated to be around seventy-five million dollars. The drugs that were stolen included anti-depressant medications Prozac and Cymbalta, and the anti-psychotic medication Zyprexa. Erik Gordon who is a business professor at the University of Michigan stated that the thieves stated that the thieves could easily get 29-25 million dollars for the stolen medication. Authorities believe that the thieves plan to sell the medication on the black market or overseas. Carl Sferrazza who is the Enfield Police Chief stated that the heist appeared to have several individuals involved, and described the incident as very well planned out and orchestrated operation. Authorities stated that there have been similar burglaries involving pharmaceutical warehouses; however, this heist was by far the biggest operation. The thieves are still at large, and the article did not state whether the police had any suspects.

I was shocked when I read this article; it seemed like something out of a movie. It surprises me to know that there are people in the world that would do this type of thing. I was even more surprised to read that the thieves didn’t get caught. With all the technology that is available today, there should be no reason why police shouldn’t catch the criminals. This article was interesting to me because the heist involved prescription medications. I am doing my second paper for this class about the abuse of prescription medications and how they are threatening to society. The abuse of prescription medications has become a nation-wide problem that needs to be addressed more seriously. Because of prescription medications, people all over the country are committing crimes like this; however, this was the biggest burglary that I have read about. How many more robberies/crimes need to occur before the government realizes that something needs to be done about the abuse and misuse of prescription medications?