Nine people — four of them family members — were busted for running a sprawling fentanyl-, meth- and coke-trafficking ring that included peddling pills shaped like Donald Trump, Mickey Mouse, bitcoin and even Legos, authorities said Wednesday.
Cops seized $2.5 million worth of the drugs in taking down the multi-state drug pressing and peddling operation after a two-year joint investigation, New York City Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan said.
The colorful tablets — some of them fake oxycodone pills laced with highly lethal fentanyl — were made into nearly a dozen recognizable shapes that included dominoes, spades, Iron Man, bitcoin, Legos and green and yellow silhouettes of the 76-year-old former president.
The bulk of the drugs were stashed in the boiler room of a Bronx apartment building, where one of the suspects worked as the super, prosecutors said.
Named in the indictment are brothers Edwin and Elvis Cabrera, their sister Jennifer Duran, and their uncle Miguel Castillo, according to prosecutors.
“Fentanyl and methamphetamine are being pressed into pills by local dealers like the Cabrera brothers, as well as the cartels in Mexico,” DEA Special Agent in Charge Frank Tarantino said in a statement.
“There is no difference between a pill mill in Mexico and a boiler room in the Bronx because they both produce death,” he said.
Four other defendants — Frankie Rosario, Juan DeJesus, Erick Sanchez and Ruben Burgos — were charged with being part of the operation that reached as far as Rhode Island and Pennsylvania, prosecutors said. All were hit with second-degree conspiracy and drug possession charges.
A second indictment charged another man, Jose Rodriguez, with gun possession.
Investigators said the crew’s operation ran from August 2019 through last month, with Edwin and Elvis Cabrera as the initial targets of the joint local, state and federal probe.
The gang used mail-order pill-pressing machines shipped to Manhattan and Rhode Island to manufacture the tablets and used “coded language” to discuss deals, prosecutors said.
The task force, which included members of the FBI, the DEA, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and the NYPD, raided two Manhattan apartments and the Bronx building near Yankee Stadium as part of the joint investigation.
The haul included more than 26,000 pills with fentanyl, 50,000 methamphetamine pills weighing more than 40 pounds, 2 kilograms of powdered fentanyl and 3 kilograms of cocaine, prosecutors said.
“Fake fentanyl pills pose a hidden threat to users who think they know the potency of the drugs they are buying,” Brennan said. “The sellers make a calculated decision to profit off their naivete regardless of the deadly consequences.”
