A man fired from a Walmart in Spanaway, Wash., tried to retrieve drugs he had hidden inside merchandise. Instead, he got a trip to jail.

The 24-year-old suspect had been fired last week after he was caught trying to steal a safe the store sells, the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department said. The safe had never left the store and was still in its box.

On Sunday morning the suspect told his ex-fellow employees that he was coming in to pick up a safe that he “forgot” at the store. Their suspicions aroused, loss prevention employees opened the safe and found a container that held 8 grams of heroin and three Xanax pills.

Heroin is an illegal and highly addictive narcotic and Xanax is a legally prescribed sedative that is also sold on the black market.

The suspect told the store employees his “medication” was inside the safe. They called 911.

When deputies arrived the man started crying and admitted the drugs were his.

“He went on to say that he paid $350 for them and was knowingly coming back to the store to get drugs,” the Sheriff’s Department said.

Deputies then contacted the suspect’s father.

“When they informed the father of what happened inside the ... store, the father said he was glad that his son got arrested and he gave the deputies a baggy of heroin that his son had left in his car...” the Sheriff’s Department said.

The suspect began crying again. He was booked into the Pierce County Jail for unlawful possession of a controlled substance.