29 Charged In Alleged Rockland County Drug Trafficking Ring
NEW CITY, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) -- Twenty-nine people have been charged for allegedly participating in a pair of drug trafficking rings that sold oxycodone and heroin in and around Rockland County, authorities announced Wednesday.
Seventeen defendants are charged in a federal indictment unsealed Wednesday. Twelve others are being charged by the state.
WEB EXTRA: Read The Indictment
Drug agents swept through the county before dawn Wednesday, bashing in doors and making arrests, CBS2's Lou Young reported.
The federal indictment alleges that from early 2014 up until this month, one of the rings sold the drugs in the Palisades Center mall parking lot in West Nyack, at the Mount Ivy Mobile Home Park in Pomona and in rented rooms at various motels around Rockland County, law enforcement officials said. Authorities identified the alleged ringleader as Victor Esteban, 27.
The other group operated at locations that included The Shops at Nanuet mall.
"Friends would bring friends to Palisades mall, to the Nanuet malls, to the hotels," Christopher Goldrick of the Rockland County Drug Task Force told reporters, including WCBS 880's Marla Diamond and 1010 WINS' Carol D'Auria. "These individuals had a very tight network. They all worked together. They worked off their phones. They worked off of texting."
The defendants conspired to distribute more than 50,000 oxycodone pills, valued at more than $1 million, authorities said. The powerful painkillers were allegedly acquired by using forged and fraudulent prescriptions in Manhattan.
One defendant, for example, used his home computer to fill out blank official New York prescriptions, authorities said. Another defendant posed as a doctor when a pharmacy called to inquire about a prescription, according to the indictment. The organization then had low-level members go to pharmacies to fill the prescriptions, authorities said.
"It was a pretty sophisticated plan with a lot of people who are playing different roles to make sure that the fraud wasn't uncovered, but fortunately for us, it was," U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said.
The group also allegedly obtained large quantities of heroin from a supplier in the Bronx.
Some of the defendants boasted about their illegal activity on Twitter and Instagram, authorities said. They referred to themselves as the "TMC" crew, for "too much cash," law enforcement officials said.
One defendant posted on Twitter saying, "Shout out my TMC bros we taking over the streets." Another tweeted, "I make money without a 9-5 gimmie some feens a trap fone and I'll be fine," according to authorities.
Twelve of the 17 defendants named in the federal indictment are in custody and were scheduled to appear in court in White Plains on Wednesday.
One agent said he thinks about the investigation every time he goes shopping with his family.
"You're at the mall, and sure enough, you're in a place where you know there's intercepts and there's wiretaps going on over the last year, where there's people here dealing drugs," said Chris Roberts of the Drug Enforcement Administration. "And some of these people are allegedly, they're bad people."
"Ordinary people should be able to live and shop without fear of being peddled drugs," Bharara said.
Meanwhile, neighbors at the trailer park in Pomona said they did not notice any drug sales there.
"If they did it, they did a pretty good job hiding it," Anthony Vega, of Pomona, told Young.
Opiate addiction is a growing problem facing many municipalities -- one that law enforcement officials said they can't arrest their way out of.
"It's happening to wealthy families. It's happening to poor families," said Rockland County Executive Ed Day. "There are no boundaries. It's happened to kids who I've coached over the years."
"In the past 20 years, there's been a sixfold increase in prescriptions for of oxycodones. Sixfold," Rockland District Attorney Thomas Zugibe said. "Is it because people are six times more in need of it, or is it because the pharmaceutical companies are pushing it? I believe it's the latter."