Equipment stolen from St. Mary’s likely bound for underground market
Nearly a week after thieves stole valuable medical equipment from St. Mary’s Hospital — causing the postponement of at least a dozen colonoscopies and other procedures — Montreal police have not turned up any leads in the case and the chief investigator has yet to speak with the staff.
Officials at the West Island health authority that oversees the Côte-des-Neiges hospital have remained tight-lipped since releasing a brief statement Thursday afternoon.
The public affairs department of the West Island CIUSSS has refused to respond to a series of queries by the Montreal Gazette, including questions about St. Mary’s security reorganization following huge budget cuts.
Sources connected to St. Mary’s said they doubt that the pilfered endoscopes and colonoscopes — used to detect the early signs of colorectal cancer — will ever be recovered and will probably be sold in an underground market that experts estimate is worth tens of millions of dollars. Although there is a legitimate market for reselling used devices, the underground market for stolen medical merchandise has burgeoned in the past two decades, with thieves targeting U.S., Canadian and European hospitals.
Joseph V. Bellino, a U.S. hospital-security veteran, suggested in an interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that Third World countries would probably fit as potential buyers for the high-quality equipment.
Some thefts of medical equipment have turned out to be inside jobs. In 2009, a janitor working in a hospital in California was arrested following the theft of $150,000 worth of endoscopes and other equipment he was alleged to have tried to sell to a dealer of used medical supplies.
Last December, a medical-devices salesperson in Florida was sentenced to three years in jail for transporting more than $5 million in instruments that were stolen from hospitals. In May 2016, a Chicago-area doctor was arrested following the theft of equipment valued at $200,000 from two hospitals.
In perhaps the most brazen theft, a South American gang stole more than $3.5 million worth of endoscopy equipment from hospitals in Germany from May 14 to June 7, according to the British Medical Journal.
The thieves are thought to be linked to an organized-crime network in Colombia.
Similar thefts from hospitals have taken place in France, Italy, Spain and Greece. ANT1 TV in Greece has reported that Colombian drug-cartel bosses are eager to use endoscopes to check whether drug couriers who swallow socalled “eggs” containing cocaine are cheating on them. Endoscopes and colonoscopes are most often stolen because the tubelike devices can be easily concealed.
Hospital officials also suspect that some stolen medical equipment ends up for sale on eBay and Kijiji. In fact, police in New York state launched an investigation last year after a hospital employee noticed that laparoscopic cameras that were missing from the central supply room were posted for sale on the auction website.
Thousands of medical scopes and other devices are sold on eBay. The company requires that sellers divulge their name, city and phone number on listings of medical devices, but there are ways to circumvent the requirements.
Const. Caroline Chèvrefils, a spokesperson for the Montreal police department, said investigators have no suspects in the case at St. Mary’s.
The theft in the gastroenterology department occurred following a reorganization of security services that was part of sharp budget cuts. In April 2015, St. Mary’s abolished the position of head of security under an administrative reform imposed by Health Minister Gaétan Barrette.
The gastroenterology department is located in the hospital’s sub-basement, with a nearby exit door to the parking lot.