A security company being sued over the theft of $60 million worth of pharmaceuticals from an Eli Lilly and Co. warehouse in Connecticut in 2010 insists there is no proof the thieves used a report it prepared detailing the building’s security weaknesses.
Attorneys for Tyco Integrated Systems LLC denied the allegations Thursday in a motion to dismiss the lawsuit filed in federal court in Hartford by Eli Lilly’s insurer, National Union Fire Insurance Co. of Pittsburgh. A spokesman for Tyco, based in Boca Raton, Fla., previously said the company doesn’t comment on pending litigation.
“Instead of backing its grave allegations with factual support, National Union merely assumes that, because burglars circumvented and disabled a TycoIS alarm system … they necessarily must have had confidential information about the facility’s security system and that TycoIS must have failed to safeguard this information,” Hartford attorney Amy Markim wrote in the motion.
Tyco also said National Union filed the lawsuit too late under Connecticut’s statute of limitations and Lilly’s contract with Tyco.
In what authorities called the biggest heist in Connecticut history, thieves cut through the roof of Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly’s warehouse in Enfield, about 20 miles north of Hartford. They rappelled to the floor, disabled alarms, used a forklift to load pallets of antidepressants, antipsychotics and other drugs into a truck and drove off.
Two brothers from Miami, Amaury and Amed Villa, have pleaded not guilty to federal theft and conspiracy charges in connection with the March 2010 burglary.
Tyco, formerly known as ADT Security Services Inc., was sued last month by National Union, which is seeking $42 million in damages — the amount of the drug maker’s insurance claim.
National Union said the thieves cut a small hole in the only safe point of entry in the roof above the master control room, which was identified in the ADT report as being inadequately monitored. The suspects rappelled to a precise location in the warehouse that was invisible to detectors and cameras, National Union said, adding that the getaway truck was parked in the only loading bay outside the view of surveillance cameras.
National Union also suggested that Tyco failed to safeguard its customers’ security information before other burglaries in which thieves used confidential information about ADT’s security systems. Tyco denies those allegations as well.
