Fort Mill Walgreens break in linked to dozens more nationwide

FORT MILL, S.C. — The drive-through window is shattered at a Fort Mill Walgreens store where bottles of painkiller were stolen.

Surveillance video shows the drive-through window shade flapping as someone outside the Walgreens smashed the glass at 3 a.m. with shards seen flying across the camera screen in the video.

Moments later, two people climbed into the pharmacy on Tom Hall Street. Channel 9 watched the video with Fort Mill police Capt. Scott Williams.

Even at that hour, he said the robbers would have been very visible from the street.

"They spent a lot of time at that window trying to gain access.

It's in a lit area and a highly traveled area at that," Williams said.

The two went right to a drug case, put bottles of painkillers in a garbage bag and left the store in barely one minute.

One of them is visible on surveillance cameras in stocking feet.

Police believe the same criminals burglarized Walgreens stores in Winston-Salem, Monks Corner and twice in Columbia.

Walgreens officials told police that there have been 30 similar crimes at their stores across the Southeast over the last few months.

So far, there are no arrests.

Investigators believe the burglars could be working in two different groups. One in this area and another out of Texas.

Fort Mill police did not have specific locations of every store that was hit.

Police said the same criminals hit a Walgreens in Columbia only about an hour before they showed up in Fort Mill. At that store, they took oxycodone, Vicodin and Adderall.

Channel 9 called the Walgreens corporate office in Illinois Tuesday afternoon. A company spokesman said he had nothing to say about the crimes.

(Click PLAY to watch surveillance video from the burglary)

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