Thursday, August 03, 2006

Viagra Gang Arrested

This Reuter news bit is really funny:

Police have arrested a man on suspicion of stealing anti-impotence drugs from dozens of pharmacies in the past year and were seeking his accomplice in what they are calling the "Viagra gang."

"One was arrested and we know the other one's identity and are looking for him," a Rio de Janeiro police spokesman said on Wednesday.

The men are suspected of holding up more than 35 pharmacies in the same drugstore chain. Police said they stole anti-impotence drugs such as Viagra as well as money from registers. The chain estimated its losses at some $220,000.

Police said the partners sold the drugs on the black market and were so successful that they drew criticism from an unlikely source -- the criminal underworld.

Taped phone conversations show members of a powerful drug gang from the same slum where the two lived complaining that their illicit business was drawing too much police attention to the shantytown near Rio's famed Copacabana Beach.