Criminals are targeting pharmacies and stealing weight-loss medication in a country with body image insecurities and where many cannot afford the drugs.
Criminals are targeting pharmacies and stealing weight-loss medication in a country with body image insecurities and where many cannot afford the drugs.
Seth Kugel and
Seth Kugel reported from São Paulo, Brazil, and Flávia Milhorance from Rio de Janeiro.
Around 10:30 p.m. on a Friday in late January, David Fernando, a pharmacist, was working behind a counter at a drugstore in São Paulo when a man walked up to him and flashed a gun. “He asked for money from the register and medications from the refrigerator,” Mr. Fernando said.
These days, pharmacists in São Paulo — Brazil’s largest city — know exactly what thieves mean when they say “medications from the refrigerator.”
They’re after Ozempic, Wegovy and Saxenda, the injectable weight-loss drugs many Brazilians covet but that most can’t afford, in a country obsessed with body image but where obesity is on the rise.
The thief made off with five boxes, each of which typically holds a month’s supply and costs 700 to 1,100 Brazilian reais, or about $120 to $190, while the average monthly income is about $300.
Though the armed robbery unnerved Mr. Fernando, 36, it was not exactly a surprise. The same pharmacy was held up for the same drugs twice in late 2024, he said. Now a security guard is posted outside.
Four blocks north, another pharmacy has taken even greater precautions after a police officer interrupted an Ozempic robbery in August, resulting in a shootout that left an older woman injured.
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