NEW HAVEN, Conn., July 1 (UPI) -- A Cuban national pleaded guilty Monday to stealing about $90 million in drugs from a Connecticut warehouse and $8 million in cigarettes from one in Illinois.
Amed Villa, 48, who had been living in Miami, pleaded guilty to federal charges arising from his role in the two massive heists.
Acting U.S. Attorney Deidre Daly said in a statement the theft of the Eli Lilly Co. pharmaceuticals "is reportedly the largest in Connecticut history."
Prosecutors say Villa, who has been in custody since his arrest in May 2012, and others from the Miami area conspired in early 2010 to steal the drugs from the Eli Lilly warehouse and storage facility in Enfield, Conn., and on the evening of March 13, 2010, used a ladder to climb onto the warehouse roof, cut a hole in it and then lowered themselves inside where they disabled the alarm system. They then loaded about 53 pallets of pharmaceuticals into a tractor-trailer rig they had backed up to the loading dock.
The pallets were loaded with thousands of boxes Zyprexa, Cymbalta, Prozac, Gemzar and other medicines, valued at about $90 million, that the group drove back to the Miami area and placed in self-storage units, prosecutors said.
In the cigarette theft case, Villa admitted that on Jan. 24, 2010, he and others stole about 3,512 cases of cigarettes and a cargo trailer from a warehouse in East Peoria, Ill. They gained access to the warehouse in similar fashion to the Connecticut case.
