Suspected Pharmacy Burglars Nabbed for Stealing Cough Syrup With GPS Tracker

Two men suspected of a series of pharmacy burglaries this year were recently caught by police after allegedly stealing a bottle of cough syrup that had a GPS tracker inside it. Suggested Reading Waiting To Exhale’s 30 Years Later: Where Are They Now? If Poor Black, White People Unite, They’d Be An Unstoppable Force, But…

Two men suspected of a series of pharmacy burglaries this year were recently caught by police after allegedly stealing a bottle of cough syrup that had a GPS tracker inside it.

Video will return here when scrolled back into view
Trump’s Tariffs Might Stick Around. What Should We Buy Now?
Trump’s Tariffs Might Stick Around. What Should We Buy Now?

Police in Tustin, Calif., had been trying to figure out who was behind a half-dozen pharmacy burglaries this year. Lt. Robert Wright of the Tustin Police Department told the Los Angeles Times that before the tracker was planted in a bottle of cough syrup, a crime analyst with the department examined the days, times and neighborhoods where pharmacy burglaries had occurred for possible patterns. They determined that Creative Compounding Pharmacy in Tustin would be a likely target.

โ€œItโ€™s pretty much like a guess,โ€ Wright said.

That guess paid off.

After getting permission from the pharmacyโ€™s owner, Denise Taylor, police planted the tracker, which functions like the Find My iPhone app, in a bottle of cough syrup. The bottle sat on the shelf for several months before it was grabbed in a burglary Nov. 10.

The tracker began to work after the bottle was removed from the pharmacy, and it began tracking the thievesโ€™ every move.

Investigators arrested Willie James Clark, 21, and Brian Vega Salinas, 20, on suspicion of committing the burglary last month after days of tracking, undercover surveillance and evidence gathering.

โ€œIt paid off,โ€ Taylor said. Her pharmacy was previously burglarized in 2012, just a year after she opened. The thieves in that case were never apprehended, even though they were captured on video surveillance.

The Times reports that this is the first time Tustin police successfully used a tracking device in pharmaceuticals, but the technology has been used on bicycles, delivery packages and one automobile. More than 100 suspected thieves have been caught through the departmentโ€™s use of GPS devices.

โ€œThe technology allows us to secrete the system in a variety of items and is only limited by our imagination,โ€ the Tustin Police Department said in a statement. โ€œWe will continue using this technology as we want every criminal who is considering stealing something in our city to wonder if a GPS device is hidden inside.โ€

Read more at the Los Angeles Times.

Straight From The Root

Sign up for our free daily newsletter.