Police tie string of New England weed thefts to New Bedford home

GORHAM, Maine (AP) — The theft of an estimated $59,000 worth of weed products from a Maine marijuana business in October is just one of many weed-related burglaries in New -England that the police suspect to be organized by the same group.

The group broke through a warehouse wall in Gorham and fled with nearly 30 pounds of marijuana and 500 THC vape cartridges, The Portland Press Herald reported Monday.

Gorham Police said building security cameras captured video of a license plate, leading them to a potential suspect with an address in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

A warrant issued by a Maine judge in January shows that several recreational marijuana businesses growing their own product and medical marijuana dispensaries in Maine and Rhode Island have been robbed in the past two years, reported the newspaper.

No arrests were made in connection with Gorham’s robbery, the newspaper said.

Gorham Police Chief Christopher Sanborn told the newspaper the investigation was ongoing and declined to say whether any federal agencies were involved.

Maine’s Office of Marijuana Policy told the newspaper that it has not analyzed the reports to determine whether crimes against marijuana companies have become more frequent.

The bureau said it requires licensed marijuana businesses to report thefts and other crimes separately from a police report, but a spokesperson for the bureau told the newspaper that many companies don’t know how to do this. Other Maine law enforcement agencies do not specifically track crimes related to marijuana businesses, the newspaper reported.

The state of Maine requires recreational marijuana businesses to take certain safety precautions because their business inevitably requires them to stock marijuana products, the newspaper reported. Many also work with large sums of money because the sale of marijuana has still not been legalized at the federal level.