A former pharmacy technician at a discount pharmacy on Chicago's West North Avenue was sentenced in November 2019 to five years in federal prison for stealing hydrocodone and selling it for profit. According to the DEA release, from October 2015 to December 2017 the technician and a co-defendant conspired to steal approximately 56,108 hydrocodone pills and sell them outside the pharmacy, receiving at least $10,800 in proceeds.
The theft was concealed by falsifying the pharmacy's inventory records so that the missing pills appeared either never to have been received from the distributor or to have been dispensed to patients. The case was investigated by the Chicago Division of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
The technician pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to possess a controlled substance with intent to deliver, and a federal judge in Chicago imposed the five-year sentence. The co-defendant pleaded guilty to the same charge and was sentenced earlier that year to a year and a day in federal prison.
Federal officials framed the sentence as a response to the opioid crisis, noting that the diversion made opiates available on the street to people who otherwise would not have had access to them.