The efforts of a five-officer team investigating retail thefts in the Miami-Dade Police Hammocks District paid off with $2.1 million confiscated and the arrest of 23 subjects. Their efforts earned Officer of the Month citations for each during the district’s Sept. 24 Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC) meeting.
Increasing reports of chain store drug thefts in the district caused Maj. Arnold Palmer to appoint the team that concluded a 14-month investigation in March by seizing 41 bank accounts of a large-scale fencing operation.
It all began with the theft of diabetic strips from CVS Pharmacies, noted Maj. Palmer who appointed the unit to aid nationwide enforcement and tracing of over-the-counter medication thefts, now a “$2 billion nationwide industry,” he said.
