Armed robbers recently netted a total of nearly $9,000 in separate heists at two city Rite Aids — as the pharmacy chain is already reeling from a local shoplifting scourge.
The first brazen stickup occurred Feb. 17 when three men approached a worker at a South Richmond Hill, Queens, location, cops said. The employee coughed up $3,000 when threatened with a firearm, police said.
The same goons were then at it again almost a month later in Brownsville, Brooklyn, where they brandished a gun, threatened an employee and fled with $5,700, according to the NYPD.
No one was injured in the robberies.
The unidentified suspects escaped in a black sedan, and two of them were later spotted on surveillance cameras at a deli, authorities said.
The unmasked suspects, who dressed in dark clothes and hats, are still at large, police said. They also wore gloves for their robberies, cops said.
Rite Aid said last year that it was shrinking its footprint in the five boroughs after shoplifting losses cost it $5 million in losses.
The shoplifting epidemic in the city had led Mayor Eric Adams to support a proposal from Gov. Kathy Hochul that would tweak the state’s controversial bail reform law to allow judges more discretion to place serial shoplifters behind bars.