Pills shaped like Donald Trump, Bitcoin traded in NYC: prosecutors

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Of Jorge Fitz-Gibbon

March 29, 2023 | 15:08

Nine people — four of them family members — were caught running a sprawling fentanyl, meth and coke deal that included selling pills shaped like Donald Trump, Mickey Mouse, Bitcoin and even Legos, authorities said Wednesday.

Police seized $2.5 million worth of drugs to take down the multi-state drug racket and drug sales after a two-year joint investigation, said New York City’s special narcotics prosecutor, Bridget Brennan.

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 stored in the boiler room of a Bronx apartment building where one of the suspects worked as a 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 pushed into pills by local dealers like the Cabrera brothers, as well as the cartels in Mexico,” DEA Special Agent 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 cause 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.

Another indictment charged another man, Jose Rodriguez, with gun possession.

Investigators said the crew’s operation ran from August 2019 to last month, with Edwin and Elvis Cabrera the first 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, DEA, Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and 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 of fentanyl, 50,000 methamphetamine pills weighing more than 40 pounds, two kilograms of powdered fentanyl and three kilograms of cocaine, prosecutors said.

“Fake fentanyl pills pose a hidden threat to users who think they know the strength of the drugs they are buying,” Brennan said. “The sellers make a calculated decision to profit from their naivety regardless of the deadly consequences.”