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Police in Tennessee are searching for a man accused of tunneling through a Walgreens drywall after it closed in order to burglarize it.
The Franklin Police Department and Crime Stoppers are offering a cash reward to anyone who can provide information leading to an arrest after opioids were taken from the pharmacy on May 18.
The Franklin Police Department has accused the suspect of hiding in the Murfreesboro Road Walgreens until the store closed and employees had left for the day.
"Once everyone was gone, the burglar tunneled into the pharmacy through the drywall and stole a large quantity of opioid painkillers," police said in a statement.
Police released surveillance footage of the suspect using a torch to look around the pharmacy as part of the investigation.
Anyone who recognizes the suspect is urged to contact Franklin Police or call Crime Stoppers at (615) 794-4000. The public can also submit a tip anonymously online.
An unspecified cash reward is being offered by police.
The Franklin Police Department has been contacted for an update on the investigation.
In February, a Walgreens employee in Bordeaux, Tennessee, was arrested on suspicion of sharing patient's personal information so others could collect and sell their prescriptions.
Dor Charika McKinney is facing a number of charges after she allegedly took part in a scheme in which people fraudulently picked up prescriptions.
The first incident allegedly occurred in December 2020 after a man attempted to pick up his wife's cancer medication.
"When he got there, they told him it had already been picked up the night before... somebody provided his wife's name, date of birth, address," an undercover detective with Metro Nashville Police Department's North Precinct told WKRN.
The investigation revealed that McKinney's husband, Christopher Lloyd, was the one who had taken the cancer medication.
McKinney reportedly confessed that after prescriptions had come up in the terminal, she would contact someone to come and collect it after providing the victim's identity.
McKinney is charged with 11 counts of identity theft and felony drug conspiracy.
Police identified six suspects who were allegedly part of the conspiracy to fraudulently obtain pain medication. Robert Toran, 21, and 22-year-old Cameron Welsch were also charged picking up prescriptions under false identities
"None of these people were people taking hydrocodone recreationally, they were all either cancer patients or heart patients or myriads of other chronic pain issues," the detective added.
"And so then you feel bad for these people, they're just trying to get their medicine."
About the writer
Ewan Palmer is a Newsweek News Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on US politics, and Florida ... Read more