Suspect in five CVS pharmacy robbings grew up in VBT

Kristopher Nicholas Kukola, 37, of Ypsilanti is being held by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in connection with five armed robberies of CVS pharmacies – with two of those being the same store in Van Buren Township on May 24 and June 8.
Kukola grew up at Kirkridge Apartments in Van Buren Township and local police considered him a “frequent flier” of run-ins with the law, beginning before he was a teenager, according to Van Buren Township Police Lt. Charles Bazzy. He later moved to Ypsilanti.
When he was 18 in 2003 he was arrested for operating a motor vehicle as a minor with a blood alcohol content of .02-.07%. Now-retired Van Buren Township officer Bart Devos, who now a police officer in the City of Belleville, was the officer in charge of the case. Kukola pled guilty and former 34th District Court Judge David Parrott sentenced him to $655 or 10 days. He eventually served 10 days in 2007 after failing to appear and having a warrant on LEIN for awhile.
Currently there is a bench warrant out for his arrest from Wayne County Circuit Court for a failure to appear there for charges of carrying a concealed weapon, weapon possession by a felon, felony firearm, and driving while license suspended on April 29, 2020 in Dearborn Heights. At one point he had a warrant out for his arrest from 12th District Court in Jackson.
Lt. Bazzy said he believes a nine-count federal indictment is being prepared by the FBI. The U.S. Marshal Service is probably holding him, Lt. Bazzy said.
Lt. Bazzy said the first CVS robbery was in Van Buren Township on May 24 and then Saline CVS was hit June 2 and then Van Buren Township CVS again on June 8.
He said Van Buren police talked to Saline police. Then after Van Buren CVS got hit again, Van Buren police called the FBI and, “They already had a case going.”
Ann Arbor CVS was hit on June 14 and then it all ended after the Milan CVS robbery on July 7, when a pharmacist included in the bag of drugs given to the robber a decoy pill bottle with a GPS tracker inside that allowed tracking in real and historical time.
The decoy pill bottle was controlled by 3SI, a third-party GPS tracking security company that works with private corporations and law enforcement with location information of tracking devices disguised as merchandise intended to be stolen by suspects in crimes of theft, according to the criminal complaint.
Kukola was driving a silver Jeep Compass and he was tracked to a Van Buren Township apartment complex.
As Michigan State Troopers set up a perimeter, with a K-9 brought in for assistance, a man came up to a trooper at the scene and told him, “The guy you are looking for ran that way,” according to reports.
Officers on the scene believed that tipster was the suspect from the Milan robbery, and they arrested him and he turned out to be Kukola, according to a criminal complaint.
During a search of his Jeep, officers reportedly found a BB gun that matched the description of the gun used in the Milan robbery along with prescription pills from the Milan store.
In each robbery, the suspect would allegedly brandish a handgun and would hand the pharmacists a note with the list of substances he wanted, except in the Ann Arbor case where he verbally demanded the substances, according to reports.
The suspect allegedly stole Oxycodone, Vicodin Norco, Adderall, Promethazine, Codeine, Xanax, Percocet, and Morphine, according to criminal complaints and authorities.
According to the criminal complaint, Kukola admitted to the FBI that he conducted the five robberies and admitted to brandishing a BB gun in each case.
In the suspect’s first robbery in Van Buren Township, the criminal complaint alleges that over $2,000 worth of substances were stolen during the robbery. The pharmacist described the suspect as being around 5’10”.
In the Saline robbery, more than $500 worth of controlled substances were stolen from the pharmacy, the criminal complaint said. The pharmacist told authorities that the suspect appeared to be thin, 6’0, and in his late 20s or early 30s.
The suspect allegedly returned to the Van Buren CVS Pharmacy and stole another $2,000 worth of substances. A staff worker told authorities that the man appeared 6’0 tall and about 30 years old. At the Ann Arbor location, the suspect allegedly stole over $2,000 worth of substances.
The suspect’s final armed robbery in Milan occurred around 10:45 a.m., while all previous incidents had taken place at night. A court document alleges that the suspect stole between $30,000 and $40,000 worth of prescription drugs from the Milan CVS location.
During the Milan robbery, as the pharmacist was filing up a bag with the substances on the list the suspect gave him, he slipped the fake pill bottle that contained a GPS tracking device into the bag, which was crucial to catching the suspect.