LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — An arrest in a burglary case targeting Arkansas pharmacies became even more significant, as it is now the largest case involving pharmacy burglaries in the Drug Enforcement Administration's history.
On Thursday, 24 co-conspirators accused of being involved in multiple pharmacy burglaries were arraigned in federal court after being arrested in July.
The additional arrests add to the initial 18 made in November 2023 in the "Rick Off Meds" operation.
"We're ready to tell you about the second phase, which has expanded from 20 pharmacies in Arkansas to now over 200 pharmacies across 30 additional states," U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas Jonathan Ross said.
Ross said 42 people from Houston were indicted after working together in the string of opioid medication thefts.
"In the early morning hours, they would shatter glass at pharmacy locations, low crawl on the floor to evade motion detectors and systematically remove dangerous opioid benzodiazepines, promethazine with codeine and other scheduled medication from the pharmacy shelves," Ross said.
That resulted in thousands of pills and gallons of promethazine cough syrup being sold on the streets back in Houston.
"It is rewarding and personally meaningful when any number of these medications are taken off the streets," Ross said. "If they're not, it's almost a certainty that they will end up causing death or other injury to the end user."
With the DEA, Stephen Hofer has recently seen a surge in pharmacy burglaries.
"Last year alone, 900 burglaries were reported," Hofer said. "As a result, pharmacies lost almost 3.8 million doses of controlled substances. This equates to more than $12 million in profits."
Ross said the work doesn't stop there to get more of these criminals off the streets.
"It certainly matters greatly to the work of our office and the law enforcement officials that we work with to make a difference," Ross said.
Most of the defendants appeared in U.S. District Court in Little Rock Thursday afternoon, and the rest will appear in September.
The 24 defendants arrested in July were charged with one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute a controlled substance.