Aug. 28--When law enforcement officials raided a Sunrise warehouse in 2005, they found millions of dollars worth of stolen Crest White Strips, Tylenol, Rogaine, razor blades and Senekot. That was just the beginning.

The warehouse offices of Pharmacare were ground zero for what federal officials say was an organized retail crime group that since September 2003 bought and sold about $7.9 million in stolen over-the-counter-medications and health and beauty aids.

The U.S. attorney's office last week unsealed an indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Fort Lauderdale charging four South Florida men and three others from North Carolina in a multimillion-dollar conspiracy involving the interstate transportation of stolen property. The merchandise had been stolen from Walgreens, Target, CVS and other retailers in North Carolina, Ohio and Texas, then transported to South Florida, where it was repackaged and ultimately resold.

This case is but a part of a growing problem of organized retail crime, which represents as much as $30 billion in retail losses every year, according to the FBI. A National Retail Federation survey released in June found that 85 percent of retailers have been victimized by organized retail crime within the last year, compared to 79 percent in 2007. Florida is one of the most active states.

The prime target: drugstores and grocery stores. The Pharmacare case is one of several indictments handed down this year in similar cases around Florida and across the country involving theft of over-the-counter-medications and health and beauty aids. The players may be different, but the style of the crimes are almost identical.

"It's a crime that's become very popular in the last decade," said Jerry Biggs, organized crime division coordinator for Walgreens, which helped investigators with the Pharmacare case. "It's very high profit and low risk. The items are small; they're light and they're expensive."

The largest organized retail crime bust came in January in Central Florida, when 18 people were indicted for stealing up to $100 million in products over the past five years.

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd's team launched the effort, which took years and the use of multiple law enforcement agencies, surveillance video, vehicle tracking and stakeouts to infiltrate the ring.

"They were so good at what they did it was difficult watching surveillance video to even tell what they were doing," Judd said.