Two arrested in Memphis pharmaceutical heist
Three armed men stole drugs from a pharmaceutical distribution center in Memphis, but embedded tracking devices allowed police to follow the suspects to a house where they recovered the product and apprehended several of the suspects, according to a bulletin from FreightWatch International.
The gunmen entered the facility as the loading dock doors were opened in the pre-dawn hours of Dec. 17. They held nine people at gunpoint and drove off with three delivery vans of pharmaceuticals.
Two men were arrested and charged with eight counts of aggravated robbery, eight counts of aggravated kidnapping and one count of aggravated assault, according to The Commercial Appeal. The Memphis newspaper said the robbery took place at Hackbarth Delivery Service and that the vans contained $200,000 worth of pharmaceuticals.
The three gunmen confronted eight Hackbarth employees and demanded money, cell phones and personal items before forcing them to load three company vans with prescription drugs, according to a police affidavit described by the paper. Employees said they were then stripped of their clothes and locked in a fenced area.
Police were able to recover two vans.
FreightWatch, a logistics security firm based in Austin, Texas, provides small GPS devices to clients that are placed inside a pallet or underneath the trailer to counter the growing criminal awareness of GPS devices on truck cabs and trailers. The devices are about the size of a deck of cards. A command center tracks and monitors the shipment's movement.
Earlier this month, the company announced a new embeddable tracking device for monitoring the location of cargo. The Geo F2 Tracker is so small it can fit inside a pill bottle. The small devices are useful for tracking products even after they have been separated from the truck. FreightWatch said the device operates without any satellite blackout areas and can used by customers for supply chain visibility.
Thefts of pharmaceuticals from trucks and warehouses increased significantly during the last five years and doubled in 2009 to $189 million, according to FreightWatch. ' Eric Kulisch