On July 3, within a span of one hour, two pharmacies located in the Los Angeles County area were burglarized, one of which is owned by a Korean American.
According to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, the Medic Pharmacy in Bellflower was burglarized around 1:30 a.m., followed by another burglary at a pharmacy in Cerritos at around 2:30 a.m.
According to the Korea Daily, the Cerritos pharmacy stated that the damage caused was not significant. The pharmacy declined to disclose the details of the damage, but they did confirm that no medication was taken during the incident.
The Sheriff’s Department is currently investigating whether the two cases are related as the burglaries happened within an hour of each other. The two pharmacies are situated only six miles apart from each other.
KTLA was informed by a public information officer with the Sheriff’s Department that the pharmacy was broken into by a group of three to five individuals. Witnesses reported that the suspects smashed the pharmacy window to gain entry before making their getaway in a white sedan.
The number of pharmacy burglaries in Los Angeles Koreatown is increasing rapidly. The Los Angeles Police Department has reported a staggering 36 burglaries of pharmacies in Koreatown this year alone, as of May. Shockingly, one of these pharmacies has been robbed not once or twice, but eight times.
Burglars are increasingly targeting pharmacies due to the high value of the narcotic drugs they stock. According to Martin Kim, the chairman of the California Korean American Pharmacists Association, burglars steal prescription-only narcotic drugs and sell them on the black market for profit. In an interview with the Korea Daily in May, Kim stated that drugs like morphine and oxycodone used to be priced at around $400 for 8 ounces, but the rising cost has made theft more common.
Yoonjae Jung and HoonSik Woo, both reachable via email at [email protected], are the authors of the following text.