Helayne Seidman for NY Post
Gangs of marauding teenagers have stormed six Big Apple pharmacies over the previous month and made off with a stash of prescription medication — and police sources say the heists might all be linked.
The teenagers have raided 5 Duane Reade retailers in Manhattan and one Brooklyn pharmacy since Feb. 28, leaping the counters, snatching codeine and different prescription narcotics earlier than operating off, in response to regulation enforcement sources.
The loot has included oxycodone and promethazine, an antihistamine that accommodates codeine, the sources mentioned.
“They know what they want, they’re in and out quickly,” one Manhattan cop mentioned. “They’re probably just selling them for quick money.”
In the latest grab-and-run heists, the brazen thieves struck two Duane Reade pharmacies on Wednesday — simply 12 minutes and a pair of miles aside, regulation enforcement sources mentioned.
In the latest theft, two or three teenagers dashed right into a Duane Reade retailer at 2069 Broadway shortly earlier than 5:20 p.m. Wednesday, simulated they’d a gun, and demanded, “Where the Oxycodone at?” sources mentioned.
The thieves then fled in a automobile.
At round 5 p.m. the identical day 4 teenagers pulled off a theft at one other Duane Reade outlet at 1231 Madison Ave.
On Tuesday, the same theft passed off at Kala Pharmacy at 9311 Church Ave. in Brownsville round 5 p.m.
In the sooner robberies, teenagers struck at Duane Reade shops at West 4th Street on March 16, one other on West twentieth Street on March 7, and one on North End Avenue on Feb. 28.
The NYPD is now making an attempt to find out if there are different comparable robberies and if the identical gang of teenagers is behind them, police mentioned.
Duane Reade has been among the many hardest-hit retailers in the 5 boroughs throughout a surge in shoplifting assaults in the 5 boroughs.
Authorities mentioned the stolen medication are a part of a thriving black market in the town.
