what y'all call it, hustlin backwards?
Suburban New York Heroin and Oxycodone Ring Busted, Federal Officials Say
By Pervaiz Shallwani
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara
The Associated Press
New York authorities on Wedneesday indicted 29 people on drug-trafficking charges, in a case that included a distribution pipeline of heroin and the prescription drug Oxycodone from New York City to Rockland County.
The U.S. Attorney’s office in New York’s Southern District indicted 17 people on conspiracy charges for selling drugs at several locations in upstate New York. The drug sales included at least 50,000 Oxycodone pills worth roughly $1 million, prosecutors said.
The 21-page indictment that was unsealed in federal court Wednesday highlights the drug-trafficking rings that have flourished in suburban areas outside of New York City.
The drug ring was also one for the Internet age, federal officials say: Members of the ring created rap videos and boasted about their crimes on Twitter, Instagram and through other social media, often using the crew name, “Too Much Cash” or “TMC.” But it also had a decidedly analog element to its operation: group members sold drugs at a mall in West Nyack, N.Y., and a trailer park in Ponoma, N.Y., federal officials say.
Prosecutors in Rockland County indicted an additional 12 people on state charges, officials said. U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara announced the indictment with local prosecutors during a press conference Wednesday morning.
While authorities said the group doesn’t have a “rigid hierarchy,” among those arrested is Victor Esteban, who goes by the street name “Tonchi,” who was identified in the indictment as the ring leader.
Oxycodone pills can fetch between $20 and $30 on the streets of Rockland County, and a full prescription of 240 tablets can net more than $7,200, prosecutors said.
Among those arrested is Jushawn Stevens, who prosecutors said generated hundreds of fake prescriptions for the oxycodone pills at his apartment in Harlem, printing out fake forms and using the names of different patients and doctors.
The prescriptions were filled by lower level members or organizations referred to as “runners” at pharmacies across the state, the indictment said. The group is also accused of selling heroin that was obtained in the Bronx.
When a pharmacy called about a prescription, the organization had members pose as doctors, the indictment said.
http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/201...l-officials-say/?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_newyork
N.Y. / Region
Over 2 Dozen Charged in Rockland County, N.Y., Drug Scheme
By BENJAMIN MUELLERMARCH 25, 2015
More than two dozen men have been charged with having roles in a sprawling oxycodone and heroin trafficking operation in New York City’s northern suburbs, the authorities said.
In the scheme, which prosecutors say lasted from at least early 2014 until this month, the men forged prescriptions, posed as doctors, set up lucrative drug deals in front of a shopping mall and a trailer park in Rockland County — and then bragged about their exploits on social media, according to a federal indictment unsealed on Wednesday.
The authorities said the drug ring reflected the spread of narcotics markets to middle-class suburban communities in the Northeast, where dealers bring supplies from large cities and find ready markets among young adults.
The indictment alleges that the ring was led by Victor Esteban, 27, who largely operated out of his home in the Mount Ivy Trailer Park in Pomona, in Rockland County.
Officials said the operation was dismantled in a series of arrests after months of undercover investigative work by the Drug Enforcement Administration and state and local agencies. Seventeen people face federal charges of narcotics conspiracy, and 12 more face state charges.
Twelve of the men facing federal charges have been arrested, and they appeared in federal court in White Plains on Wednesday. Details of the state charges have not been released.
“What we have more and more in this country is poison by prescription,” Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement announcing the indictments. “The abuse of prescription painkillers, and oxycodone in particular, has become a crisis of epidemic proportions.”
A Harlem resident, Jushawn Stevens, 29, was found last year using his home computer to print oxycodone prescriptions on pilfered official prescription forms. At least one of Mr. Stevens’s associates then pretended to be a doctor when low-level “runners” filled the prescriptions and a pharmacist called with questions.
They used coded language to discuss business, the indictment says. Oxycodone pills were “blues,” “trues” or “grays,” depending on their size, and purchase orders were “licks.” Heroin was referred to as “food” or “dog food.”
But their techniques did not escape the authorities’ notice. Some of the 50,000 oxycodone tablets the group sold, at a value of more than $1 million, changed hands at Palisades Center Mall in West Nyack.
The Rockland County district attorney, Thomas Zugibe, called that “a new low” for the dealers, and chided them for “selling prescription drugs and heroin at popular locations where parents drop off their kids to see a movie, attend a birthday party or spend time ice skating with friends.”
Among the evidence cited in the federal indictment were Twitter posts by the defendants apparently celebrating their dominance of the narcotics market under the banner of the “Too Much Cash” crew, or “TMC.”
One of the men charged, Brandon Thomas, 20, in November wrote on Twitter, “I make money without a 9-5 gimmie some feens a trap fone and I’ll be fine...,” which prosecutors roughly translated as a boast that he did not need a real job because drug addicts (“feens”) and a work phone (“trap phone”) were enough to line up deals.
In an earlier Twitter post, Mr. Thomas, of Pomona, wrote: “the feds just wanna see me in jail.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/26/n...on®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0
Suburban New York Heroin and Oxycodone Ring Busted, Federal Officials Say
By Pervaiz Shallwani
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara
The Associated Press
New York authorities on Wedneesday indicted 29 people on drug-trafficking charges, in a case that included a distribution pipeline of heroin and the prescription drug Oxycodone from New York City to Rockland County.
The U.S. Attorney’s office in New York’s Southern District indicted 17 people on conspiracy charges for selling drugs at several locations in upstate New York. The drug sales included at least 50,000 Oxycodone pills worth roughly $1 million, prosecutors said.
The 21-page indictment that was unsealed in federal court Wednesday highlights the drug-trafficking rings that have flourished in suburban areas outside of New York City.
The drug ring was also one for the Internet age, federal officials say: Members of the ring created rap videos and boasted about their crimes on Twitter, Instagram and through other social media, often using the crew name, “Too Much Cash” or “TMC.” But it also had a decidedly analog element to its operation: group members sold drugs at a mall in West Nyack, N.Y., and a trailer park in Ponoma, N.Y., federal officials say.
Prosecutors in Rockland County indicted an additional 12 people on state charges, officials said. U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara announced the indictment with local prosecutors during a press conference Wednesday morning.
While authorities said the group doesn’t have a “rigid hierarchy,” among those arrested is Victor Esteban, who goes by the street name “Tonchi,” who was identified in the indictment as the ring leader.
Oxycodone pills can fetch between $20 and $30 on the streets of Rockland County, and a full prescription of 240 tablets can net more than $7,200, prosecutors said.
Among those arrested is Jushawn Stevens, who prosecutors said generated hundreds of fake prescriptions for the oxycodone pills at his apartment in Harlem, printing out fake forms and using the names of different patients and doctors.
The prescriptions were filled by lower level members or organizations referred to as “runners” at pharmacies across the state, the indictment said. The group is also accused of selling heroin that was obtained in the Bronx.
When a pharmacy called about a prescription, the organization had members pose as doctors, the indictment said.
http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/201...l-officials-say/?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_newyork
N.Y. / Region
Over 2 Dozen Charged in Rockland County, N.Y., Drug Scheme
By BENJAMIN MUELLERMARCH 25, 2015
More than two dozen men have been charged with having roles in a sprawling oxycodone and heroin trafficking operation in New York City’s northern suburbs, the authorities said.
In the scheme, which prosecutors say lasted from at least early 2014 until this month, the men forged prescriptions, posed as doctors, set up lucrative drug deals in front of a shopping mall and a trailer park in Rockland County — and then bragged about their exploits on social media, according to a federal indictment unsealed on Wednesday.
The authorities said the drug ring reflected the spread of narcotics markets to middle-class suburban communities in the Northeast, where dealers bring supplies from large cities and find ready markets among young adults.
The indictment alleges that the ring was led by Victor Esteban, 27, who largely operated out of his home in the Mount Ivy Trailer Park in Pomona, in Rockland County.
Officials said the operation was dismantled in a series of arrests after months of undercover investigative work by the Drug Enforcement Administration and state and local agencies. Seventeen people face federal charges of narcotics conspiracy, and 12 more face state charges.
Twelve of the men facing federal charges have been arrested, and they appeared in federal court in White Plains on Wednesday. Details of the state charges have not been released.
“What we have more and more in this country is poison by prescription,” Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement announcing the indictments. “The abuse of prescription painkillers, and oxycodone in particular, has become a crisis of epidemic proportions.”
A Harlem resident, Jushawn Stevens, 29, was found last year using his home computer to print oxycodone prescriptions on pilfered official prescription forms. At least one of Mr. Stevens’s associates then pretended to be a doctor when low-level “runners” filled the prescriptions and a pharmacist called with questions.
They used coded language to discuss business, the indictment says. Oxycodone pills were “blues,” “trues” or “grays,” depending on their size, and purchase orders were “licks.” Heroin was referred to as “food” or “dog food.”
But their techniques did not escape the authorities’ notice. Some of the 50,000 oxycodone tablets the group sold, at a value of more than $1 million, changed hands at Palisades Center Mall in West Nyack.
The Rockland County district attorney, Thomas Zugibe, called that “a new low” for the dealers, and chided them for “selling prescription drugs and heroin at popular locations where parents drop off their kids to see a movie, attend a birthday party or spend time ice skating with friends.”
Among the evidence cited in the federal indictment were Twitter posts by the defendants apparently celebrating their dominance of the narcotics market under the banner of the “Too Much Cash” crew, or “TMC.”
One of the men charged, Brandon Thomas, 20, in November wrote on Twitter, “I make money without a 9-5 gimmie some feens a trap fone and I’ll be fine...,” which prosecutors roughly translated as a boast that he did not need a real job because drug addicts (“feens”) and a work phone (“trap phone”) were enough to line up deals.
In an earlier Twitter post, Mr. Thomas, of Pomona, wrote: “the feds just wanna see me in jail.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/26/n...on®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0
