GORHAM, Maine — The robbery of an estimated $59,000 worth of weed products from a Maine marijuana business in October is just one of a string of weed-related burglaries in New England that police suspect are being organized by the same group.
The group cut through the wall of a warehouse in Gorham and ran away with nearly 30 pounds of marijuana and 500 THC vaping cartridges, The Portland Press Herald reported Monday.
Gorham police said the building's security cameras caught video of a license plate, leading them to a potential suspect with an address in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
A warrant granted by a Maine judge in January shows multiple recreational marijuana businesses growing their own product, and medical marijuana dispensaries in Maine and Rhode Island have been burglarized in the past two years, the newspaper reported.
No arrests have been made in the Gorham robbery, the newspaper said.
Gorham Police Chief Christopher Sanborn told the newspaper the investigation was ongoing and declined to say whether federal agencies were involved.
Maine's Office of Marijuana Policy told the newspaper that it had not analyzed reports to determine if crimes against marijuana businesses have become more frequent.
The office said it requires licensed marijuana businesses to report robberies and other crimes separate from a police report, but an office spokesperson told the newspaper many businesses do not know to do so. Other Maine law enforcement agencies do not specifically track crimes relating to marijuana businesses, the newspaper reported.
The state of Maine requires recreational marijuana businesses to take certain security measures as their business inevitably requires them to store marijuana products, the newspaper reported. Many also work with large amounts of cash because the sale of marijuana has still not been legalized federally.
