Ozempic Gang: police act to combat theft of high-cost medicines in SP

Since January this year, the São Paulo Civil Police have dismantled at least three gangs that stole high-cost medicines from pharmacies in the capital of São Paulo.

Among the medicines that are targeted by criminals are Ozempic, which is used for weight loss and whose box can cost more than R$1,000. After the criminal actions, medicines were sold on the internet for lower prices than those found in pharmacies.

According to the São Paulo Public Security Secretariat, authorities reached the gangs after a police investigator considered the hypothesis that a thief, arrested at the end of January, was involved in constant robberies of pharmacies. The man had already robbed the same drugstore in São Paulo nine times.

With the information, the teams centralized efforts to take down what, initially, was just a gang. During the course of the action, two other criminal groups, which carried out robberies against pharmacies, were discovered.

According to delegate Pedro Ivo dos Santos, from the State Department of Criminal Investigations (Deic), responsible for the investigations, the gangs operated in the North, South and Center Zones of the city of São Paulo.

Last Saturday (16), around five suspects, between 21 and 34 years old, were arrested red-handed in a property in Guarulhos, in Greater São Paulo. Since the first arrests, in January, the remaining members of these gangs have fled across the state, but are gradually being located by the police. Equipment such as night vision and drones were used to monitor them and reach these criminals.

“We monitored, obtained search warrants, requested arrests, until we reached everyone involved. The procedures to reach these criminals are not simple”, says delegate Pedro Ivo, from the State Department of Criminal Investigations (Deic).

* Under supervision