STOLEN OR MISSING ENDOSCOPES:

 1/30/2008 A former Fox Chapel man was sentenced to 37 months in federal prison today for stealing $1.6 million worth of colonoscopes from 22 hospitals in six states.
Michael Marburger, 36, originally was charged with 66 counts of transporting stolen goods. He pleaded guilty to one count in May.

From March 2004 to July 2006, prosecutors said Marburger stole the medical devices from hospitals in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Virginia, West Virginia and New York. Local hospitals include UPMC St. Margaret, near Aspinwll; UPMC McKeesport; West Penn Hospital; the Veterans Administration Medical Center; Butler Memorial; and Medical Center Sewickley.

The colonoscopes were resold to medical supply distributors for nearly $500,000, Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Brady said.


Marburger said he gambled away most of the money.
"Due to my actions, I hurt a lot of people who I love and respect," Marburger said. "These people will forever endure the consequences of my actions and the legacy they have brought."

Marburger is a former sales representative for Olympus America and sold the devices to hospitals in the region. After he lost his job, Brady said Marburger would stake out hospital security before going in wearing his former uniform or hospital scrubs and taking the equipment.

Colonoscopes are used to examine people for colon cancer and other intestinal ailments.

The FBI connected Marburger to most of the stolen devices after several bought from a New Hampshire medical supply distributor were sent for repairs to Olympus. Bank records also show Marburger sold colonoscopes to distributors in Florida and Chicago.

In addition to his prison sentence, U.S. District Judge Donetta Ambrose ordered Marburger to pay $1.625 million in restitution to the various hospitals and three years' supervised release once he gets out of prison.

Marburger was taken into custody. Ambrose said she was disturbed by testimony from the defendant's ex-wife concerning a threatening phone call made to her boyfriend Friday night. Marburger's ex-wife has had a protection from abuse order in place since February 2006.
 

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PITTSBURGH — A man transported stolen colonoscopes across state lines and resold them to medical equipment distributors, federal prosecutors said.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Pittsburgh on Thursday identified the man only as Michael Marburger, and did not release his address as part of what prosecutors called an ongoing investigation.

Marburger was charged with transporting 66 colonoscopes stolen from 22 hospitals in Pittsburgh, Erie, Cleveland, State College, Clarksburg, W.Va., and elsewhere between March 2004 and July 2006.


The devices are used to examine people for colon cancer and other intestinal ailments. Their total value was more than $1.6 million, prosecutors said.

Ten colonoscopes were taken from United Hospital Center in Clarksburg in July 2006. Authorities did not say who they think took the devices or which distributors bought them.

Online federal court records did not list an attorney for Marburger.
 

X-ray tech charged in Valley Hospital theft

Thursday, July 12, 2007

By EVONNE COUTROS
STAFF WRITER



RIDGEWOOD NJ USA-- Police have charged an X-ray technician at The Valley Hospital with the theft of a high-priced endoscope that was part of $229,000 worth of specialized medical equipment reported stolen from the facility this week.

An X Ray Tech, 44, of Washington Township was charged with burglary and theft for allegedly stealing the $35,000 endoscope from the hospital on Van Dien Avenue, police said.


In addition to the endoscope, the stolen goods include six bronchoscopes valued at $24,000 each and a video gastroscope priced at $30,000, said Ridgewood Detective William Hemmer.

All the devices were removed from a secure area of the hospital, police said.

As reported by The Record in October, there have been a rash of special-equipment thefts at North Jersey hospitals -- particularly portable, fiber optic endoscopes.

Theft of medical equipment has become a concern internationally, with one hospital in England estimating a loss of $560,000 worth of endoscope equipment in late 2005.

"We have learned that there is a market for these items, both in and out of the United States." Hemmer said.

X Ray Tech was released on $25,000 bail pending a court appearance.

E-mail: coutros@northjersey.com


 

Hospitals fall victim to strange trend: endoscope theft

It's the $260,000 question: Who's been swiping endoscopes from North Jersey hospitals?

By conservative estimates, that's the value of special equipment that law enforcement officials say has disappeared from three local hospitals in the past several months.

Endoscopes -- those sometimes discomfiting, video-equipped cables that doctors use to peer into your body -- can retail for as much as a new sedan. They're also slender enough to slip inside a coat, making them popular targets, police say, for thieves who then sell them to overseas markets and shady Internet purveyors.

"The amount of money these things are worth is phenomenal," said Ridgewood Detective Douglas Henky. "And the fact that they're small makes them even more enticing [to criminals]."

Since the spring, nine endoscopes – ranging in value from $23,000 to $38,000 – have been reported stolen from hospitals in Englewood, Ridgewood and Teaneck. In the most recent theft, an Olympus endoscope worth roughly $38,000 was reported stolen Sept. 16 from The Valley Hospital's Cheel Wing, Henky said.

Six months earlier, two similar endoscopes were taken from the Ridgewood hospital, police said. Over the same period, Englewood Hospital and Medical Center and Holy Name Hospital in Teaneck have reported a combined six endoscope thefts.

"Certainly some unsavory individuals recognize [that endoscopes] are invaluable," said Olympus Medical Systems Group spokesman Megan Longenderfer.

Besides being expensive, the fiber-optic devices are cutting-edge and slender, said Chris Collins, nurse manager of Holy Name's endoscopy unit.

"When you put it in perspective, a CT scan [machine] can go for more than a million," Collins said. "But as portable pieces of equipment go, [an endoscope] has a big bang for its buck."

Endoscope thefts have become such a concern nationwide -- and beyond -- that federal authorities have gotten involved.

"Search warrants have been served in a number of cases," said FBI spokesman Stephen Kodak Jr. He declined to elaborate.

Late last year, a hospital in England reported the theft of an estimated $560,000 worth of endoscopes. In September 2005, more than $100,000 worth of endoscopes were taken from a Pennsylvania hospital. A Florida hospital saw $400,000 worth of the devices vanish in 2002.

"This is apparently a pretty common thing in a lot of hospitals," said Teaneck Detective Thomas Melvin. "They're either sold on the black-type market or on the Internet or shipped overseas."

A simple Internet search of "endoscopes for sale" yields nearly 150,000 hits. Among them are online auction sites that provide a platform for endoscope sale.

Police aren't sure how the devices are taken, although they suspect the thieves may use personal bags given to hospital patients. Endoscopes are often stored in nondescript black suitcases, as well, making them easy to spirit away.

"I would think this is more than a one-man operation," Melvin said. "You lean toward someone leading this charge and then hiring underlings to help."

Four types of endoscopes are used in specific procedures. Across the board, however, the devices are quite similar: 2- to 4-foot flexible cables, roughly the width of a grown man's pinky finger, with the ability to conduct a breadth of medical procedures.

The high-end models not only can shine light and broadcast video but also take biopsies, provide suction, introduce liquids and even tattoo tumors for future reference, Collins said.

"That's why they're so valuable," he said, weighing an ERCP scope in his hands approvingly.

In response to the thefts, Holy Name officials have beefed up security at the hospital. Officials with the endoscopy unit also met this summer with the hospital's chief of security, who recommended locking the devices separately from other medical hardware.

The endoscopes at Holy Name now hang inside a locked pair of narrow closets inside a locked room of the endoscopy unit, which is strictly accessible only by hospital staff.

No similar thefts were reported by major hospitals in Passaic, Morris or Hudson counties.

E-mail this person if you have any knowledge: tsai@northjersey.com

User Name: robert deleno
Address: 16 guion place
City, State, Zip: new rochelle, ny 10801
User Telephone Number:: 9146325000 x3562
User FAX Number: 9146371377
User Email: rdeleno@sshsw.org

Date: 14 Jun 2006

Comments:

Two Olympus GIF 160's:

1) S/N: 2205411
2) S/N: 2419188

HOLY NAME HOSPITAL : TEANECK NEW JERSEY

MAY 8TH 2006

TJF-160F  S/N: 2402390

GIF-130  S/N:  2523991

CALL OFFICER R. GLORIA, TEANECK POLICE DEPT. 201 833 2600

OLYMPUS:

PCF-140L

GIF-Q140

CF-Q140L

CF-20L

CF-P20L

STOLEN FROM:

Doctors Hospital 5240 South Sixth Street, Springfield, IL 62701

CONTACT:

Springfield Police Dept.

800 E. Monroe, Springfield, IL 62701
217.788.8311

case #: S06-7814

OR CONTACT: info@1800endoscope.com

OLYMPUS

LF-2

2301611

CONTACT: info@1800endoscope.com

PENTAX

EC-3801L

AO11915

CONTACT: info@1800endoscope.com

Stolen from Mt. Nittany Medical Center:

Olympus model CF140L, Serial #2914846

Olympus model CFQ160L, Serial #2110860

User Name: State College Police Dept.
Address: 243 S. Allen St.
City, State, Zip: State College, PA 16801
User Telephone Number:: 814/234-7150
User FAX Number: 814/231-3070
contact: rralston@statecollegepa.us

STOLEN ENDOSCOPE INFO:

WINTER HAVEN, FL -- The Winter Haven Police Department is no longer involved in the investigation of $400,000 of equipment that was stolen from Winter Haven Hospital in 2002.

The Federal Bureau of Investigations has completely taken over the case, said police Lt. Dan Martin in the Detective's Division.

"They are pursuing leads out of the country and we no longer have any involvement other than being a contact agency," Martin said.

Officials in the FBI's Tampa office would not confirm or deny the investigation.

When the investigation began, the Police Department's investigators worked on the case with the FBI and 13 agencies across the state. The Florida Hospital Association had also assisted in the investigation.

As a result of the theft, Winter Haven Hospital officials told The Ledger last year that they strengthened their security procedures.

A magnetic security card system has been installed so that only approved personnel can enter high security areas.

Thieves struck the hospital's second-floor Endoscopy Department's equipment room Oct. 3, 2002, stealing 19 endoscopes.

Hospital officials have said they think the theft occurred sometime overnight. The room where the endoscopes were kept was locked, hospital officials have said.

The day after the theft, two hospital employees opened the doors to the equipment room to find only two endoscopes remaining, according to a Winter Haven Police Department report.

Hospital employees searched the second floor to see whether the missing 19 endoscopes were misplaced but they couldn't find them, the report stated.

Missing were seven different models of Olympus endoscopes, including gastroscopes, colonoscopes and duodenoscopes.

Merissa Green can be reached at merissa.green@theledger.com or 863-401-6968

Specialist equipment worth hundreds of thousands of pounds has been stolen from York Hospital, United Kingdom.

- Evis Videoscope Processor Olympus CV-240 no serial number given
- Light Source Olympus CLV-U40 no serial number given
- Colonoscope Olympus CF240L serial number 2800189
- Colonoscope Olympus CF240L serial number 2000053
- Colonoscope CF240L serial number 2030327
- Paediatric Colonoscope PCF240L serial number 2200076
- Gastroscope GIFXQ240 serial number 2812376
- Gastroscope GIFXQ240 serial number 2033596
- Gastroscope GIFXQ240 serial number 2135053

In addition, ths machine went missing from West Middlesex Hospital in February of '05:
- Keymed 3500 - model number MO2935, serial number 102935. Reportedly it might have turned up in Romania.

BBC NEWS

PITTSBURGH -- Four colonoscopes were stolen recently from Armstrong County Memorial Hospital, a theft that one law enforcement official says is likely driven by a big overseas market.

"If you go on the Web and type in 'used endoscopes' or 'used colonoscopes,' you'll find dozens of suppliers selling used equipment," said State College police Det. Ralph Ralston. "It's kind of bizarre."

State police in Kittanning announced Thursday that they were investigating last weekend's theft from Armstrong County Memorial Hospital in East Franklin Township, about 35 miles north of Pittsburgh. The devices, worth $103,680 total, are used to examine the human colon.

"We're mystified by it ourselves," said Bud Mitchell, the hospital's director of facilities management.

Meanwhile, Ralston has been investigating the theft of two colonoscopes, worth a combined $46,700, from the Mount Nittany Medical Center since July.

"There aren't any leads to go on," Ralston said.

The medical devices, which sell for $25,000 new, can be purchased for as little as $4,000 on some Web sites, The Associated Press found. Ralston said some used equipment sites let hospitals and others enter information about stolen equipment, so it can be identified if somebody tries to sell it through those sites.

The Armstrong County units were discovered missing at the beginning of Monday's daylight shift, when patients began showing up for colonoscopies. The hospital had other colonoscopes and the procedures were performed as scheduled, but hospital officials immediately began a department-by-department search for the equipment because of its value, Mitchell said.

"Later the same day, we called the police, once we felt there was some foul play there," Mitchell said. The hospital is mulling offering a reward. State police said they have no leads.

"It is in the rumor mill that this is something that's happened to several other hospitals in the Pittsburgh region," Mitchell said.

Officials with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, the largest hospital network in the area, couldn't immediately say if they've had similar thefts at their hospitals.

But the problem has cropped up elsewhere.

The Florida Hospital Association, which includes 220 hospitals in that state, lobbied for and got stiffer penalties for medical equipment theft after a number of incidents there, said agency spokesman Rich Rasmussen.

Stealing an emergency medical device worth more than $300 is now a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison; before the change, someone would have had to steal equipment worth $100,000 to merit that penalty, Rasmussen said.

In 2002, 19 endoscopes - devices, including colonoscopes, used to examine various parts of the body - were stolen from Florida's Winter Haven Hospital. After local police had no luck solving the case, it was turned over to the FBI last year. The FBI couldn't immediately comment on whether that case had been solved.

The stolen Florida scopes were made by Melville, N.Y.-based Olympus America Inc., which is also known for its cameras. The Armstrong County scopes were also made by Olympus, which claims to control about 70 percent of the U.S. endoscope market. Officials there couldn't immediately comment on how common such thefts are.

Ralston said the first case he heard of involved DuBois Regional Medical Center, in Jefferson County. DuBois Asst. Chief Ron LaRotonda said police are still investigating that theft, reported on Dec. 27.

2005 "Kind of a unique item to get taken, huh?" LaRotonda said.