Bx. pill factory
Super busted in heroin-fentanyl operation
A super and two drug dealers ran a black market pill mill out of a Bronx apartment building, authorities said Tuesday.
The raid last month on a vacant studio apartment and adjacent boiler room at 2314 Morris Ave. in Fordham Heights uncovered equipment used to make thousands of counterfeit oxycodone pills containing heroin and fentanyl, as well as ecstasy containing methamphetamine, announced Bridget Brennan, the city's special narcotics prosecutor.
Inside the apartment authorities said they found a pill press machine, pill press imprints, surgical masks and a vacuum sealer. A refrigerator held food storage containers filled with substances in assorted colors along with drug paraphernalia, cutting agents and grinders.
A suitcase contained thousands of pills and approximately 420 grams of a heroin-fentanyl mixture, as well as 180 grams of methamphetamine, according to authorities.
The super, Roberto Castillo, 34, faces charges of conspiracy and criminal possession of a controlled substance. The two alleged dealers, Agustin Vasquez Chavez and Yefri Hernandez-Ozoria, face charges of conspiracy and criminal sale of a controlled substance.
The men were set to be arraigned Tuesday. The most serious charges against them carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
“Narcotics traffickers have long exploited the nation's high demand for pain pills, a powerful gateway to addiction,” Brennan said. “But this investigation reveals an even more deviant scheme — an organization creating and distributing counterfeit pills with highly potent and lethal compounds.”
The investigation began with authorities investigating Chavez, 51, and HernandezOzoria, 31, as suspected drug dealers. On July 31, Hernandez-Ozoria sold an undercover officer 860 pills of fauxoxycodone containing fentanyl, a prescription opioid medication, and 50 pills of purported ecstasy — which was actually meth — for $5,000 cash, according to a release.
On Sept. 11, HernandezOzoria and Chavez sold an undercover officer 3,000 counterfeit oxycodone pills for $20,000. Authorities said they arrested the men and learned that day about the pill manufacturing operation at the Morris Ave. apartment building where Castillo is the super.
Surveillance video captured Castillo coming and going from the apartment, which was accessible from an interior courtyard, authorities said.
Investigators donned protective gear, including masks, to seize the drugs in the apartment. Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, is approximately 50 times more potent than heroin and can be lethal when inhaled or ingested, authorities said.
“The new threat facing public health and law enforcement is synthetic drugs because dealers act as mad scientists, producing unregulated concoctions for street sales,” Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent in Charge James Hunt said.
Attorneys for the men did not immediately respond to requests for comment.