Central Grocery Bust

By Rachelle Bowden in News on Dec 3, 2004 4:20PM

You know those annoying labels that are on all of the products that you buy at Walgreens? They say something like "Don't buy this except if you're buying it at Walgreens" or some crap to that effect? We always wondered what the big whoop was about those and why they were on there.. and now we know.

In what's believed to be the biggest fencing operations in the area like EVER, Central Grocery (in Maywood) was busted for selling merchandise that that was stolen from local retail stores - including Walgreens. And the profit they made was a cool $18 mil/year.

Here's how they did it - about 100 shoplifters per day would sell stolen grocery items at about 20 - 30% of their retail value to Central Grocery. The theives were paid in cash by members of the operation. Then the store would then sell the items to legit grocery stores, acting as a wholesaler. It's estimated that they had about a $50k turnover in business each day.

Police arrested 4 guys, including the store's owner, who now face felony theft charges. They also have warrants out for 4 other people and say that the investigation isn't over yet. Most of the merchandise recovered were things like baby formula, medical products, nicotine patches, and iPods and they were taken from stores like Target, Wal-Mart and Walgreens.

Still we're still wondering about the Walgreen's stickers. If you saw some product for sale at a store for cheaper than retail and it had a sticker on it would it really deter you from buying the product?