A gray plastic tarp left at the scene of a pharmacy burglary in Pendleton, Ore., helped bring down a Snohomish County ring of drug bandits considered to be one of the most sophisticated in the nation.
In all, 31 people — mostly from Snohomish County — were convicted of stealing and selling about 1 million pills. The ring burglarized pharmacies in four states.
On Thursday, one of the last major organizers in the burglary scheme pleaded guilty to four crimes, including being a felon in possession of a gun, conspiracy and breaking into pharmacies.
Joshua Allen James, 29, of Lake Stevens is expected to receive a six-year prison term March 21, when he is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik.
The tarp led state police and federal investigators to a Wal-Mart store in Pendleton. Investigators used the store’s surveillance cameras in 2006 to capture images of two people, setting in motion the unraveling of the ring.
At the time, Washington state led the nation in pharmacy burglaries, and similarities between the heists in four states got law enforcement personnel putting their heads together and pursuing a coordinated investigation, an effort called “Operation Midnight Sweep.”
Over three years, the burglars also were organized.
“They were really good at what they did, and (police) weren’t catching them in the act,” said Ronald Friedman, assistant U.S. attorney in Seattle.
In the past couple of years, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, the Justice Department and numerous local law enforcement agencies became alarmed at the number of nighttime burglaries in Washington, Friedman said.
There was a high of 51 burglaries in the state in 2004 and 48 in 2005. In 2006, there was an average of 13 burglaries every three months until investigators started arresting ring members.
With aggressive prosecution of the Snohomish County ring, the number dropped to just four burglaries between August and November this year, all of them unsophisticated, Friedman said.
“That suggests we had an impact,” Friedman said.
The lengthy investigation so far has resulted in 13 people admitting to being burglars and 18 more to being sellers of stolen narcotic painkillers such as oxycodone and morphine.
Along with making arrests and getting guilty pleas, federal agents seized 25 guns, 47,000 pills and about $235,000 in cash, vehicles and electronic equipment.
The burglary ring participants jointly will be required to pay more than $500,000 restitution for the drugs taken and damage to the stores.
Typically, the burglars purchased a tarp and bolt cutters locally after inspecting a pharmacy they intended to hit. They often used computers to locate drugstore locations in the various cities they visited.
Late at night or early in the morning, the burglars would cover the telephone junction box outside the pharmacy and then cut the telephone lines to the store to disable the burglar alarm, Friedman said.
They would use cell phones to call the pharmacy, just to make sure that the phone lines were cut, he added. Search warrants for phone records also were used in tracking participants, Friedman said.
When authorities reviewed the Wal-Mart surveillance recordings last year in Pendleton, they spotted Michael Hinkle, 35, of Marysville.
The pharmacy surveillance tape in Pendleton also revealed Hinkle and James looking around the store the day of the burglary. Hinkle was one of the first to plead guilty.
The group started small as a way to satisfy a drug habit, and participants got better at burglarizing the pharmacies, Friedman said. Small, independent pharmacies were first on the hit list, and then the bandits moved up to chain stores, he said.
In addition to James, another participant pleaded guilty on Wednesday to possession of drugs with intent to deliver. Robert L. Calkins, 25, of Marysville was arrested in Mukilteo with more than 4,000 pills in his backpack, records show.
Calkins is scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 15.
A lot of those prosecuted are users of the drugs.
“This was principally a business, but they definitely enjoyed their wares as well,” Friedman said.
Reporter Jim Haley: 425-339-3447 or jhaley@heraldnet.com.
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