Police investigate pair of pharmacy burglaries
Oct. 25—Law enforcement officials say as many as four people burglarized a pair of area pharmacies late last week, taking cash and an unknown amount of pharmaceutical drugs from each location.
Santa Fe County Sheriff's spokesman Juan Ríos said deputies responded to the report of a burglary at a Del Norte pharmacy on Caliente Road in Eldorado early Friday morning, where surveillance camera footage revealed four hooded suspects breaking in with a crowbar.
Not long afterward, a Del Norte location on Galisteo Street in Santa Fe was breached in a similar fashion. Santa Fe Police Department Capt. Aaron Ortiz said four suspects were involved, and the car used in their escape matches a similar description to the 2022 white Buick Enclave detailed by the sheriff's office.
"We don't know who they are, but it looks like they're making the rounds and breaking into pharmacies," Ríos said Friday. "It's a ring of actors."
The pharmacy in Eldorado was burglarized at about 5:40 a.m. Friday, according to an incident report provided by the sheriff's office Monday. Ortiz said the Galisteo Street outlet was broken into shortly before 6 a.m.
Ortiz said officers and deputies from both agencies have spoken regarding the similarities in each incident.
"The [sheriff's office] had reached out to the officer that was involved in the [Galisteo Street] investigation, and they kind of linked them together that way," Ortiz said. "They said that the suspects appeared to be the same suspects from both incidents."
The sheriff's office was alerted to the burglary at the Eldorado location after a commercial alarm was triggered at the store. Deputies arrived on scene at about 6:18 a.m., according to the incident report.
While the burglars had fled the Eldorado store prior to deputies' arrival, surveillance footage from the incident showed four people forced their way into the pharmacy by prying open a security screen with a crowbar. According to the incident report, the burglars then crawled under the gate and made their way into the store.
About $200 in cash was taken, as well as "a bag of unknown contents suspected to be pharmaceuticals," according to the incident report. It also states the two heists could be related.
"The travel time from Del Norte-El Dorado and Del Norte-Santa Fe is approximately fourteen minutes," the incident report states, "leaving the suspects enough time to burglarize the Santa Fe store as well."
Ortiz on Monday said the suspects took cash from the Galisteo location's cash drawer, as well as pharmaceutical drugs. He did not give specifics for what kind of drugs were taken.
Ortiz added more information will be derived from the incident once it is assigned to a detective.
"Once this is assigned ... they'll reach out to the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office, see where they're at with their investigation, and they'll collaborate the two investigations," Ortiz said. "They [will] work the two separate investigations, but as the leads develop, we'll share that information."
Ríos wrote in an email Monday the sheriff's office did not have leads on the burglary in Eldorado.
