Four Charged in OxyContin Distribution Plot
In New York yesterday, four members of a Connecticut-based criminal organization were charged with conspiracy to distribute large quantities of OxyContin and other oxycodone pills.
Raymond Capozziello, 45, is alleged to have headed a large-scale oxycodone trafficking organization that sold more than 120,000 tablets of oxycodone worth more than more than $7 million in and around Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Approximately half of the pills sold were 80-milligram tablets of OxyContin, powerful painkillers with a high potential for addiction and abuse. They are often sold on the street as a substitute for heroin and other illegal drugs for up to $80 per pill.
Capozziello and his second-in-command, Marcus Erodici, 43, allegedly recruited at least 10 straw buyers for the pills, including Michael Walker, 52, and Alexander Vanghele, 51, to travel from Connecticut to Manhattan to visit an unnamed pain management doctor.
The doctor allegedly wrote prescriptions for hundreds of oxycodone tablets for each straw buyer every 30 days. The straw buyers then traveled to a pharmacist in Manhattan who filled these large prescriptions in the name of the straw buyers, at a cost of thousands of dollars per prescription.
The straw buyers were said to have provided the pills to Capoziello, Erodici, or another member of the organization, so that the pills could be distributed for a profit to drug addicts in and around Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Capozziello allegedly paid the expenses incurred by the straw buyers, including the cost of the visit to the doctor and pharmacist for the pills. In addition, members of the conspiracy also paid cash to the straw buyers for their services.
Capozziello and Erodici reportedly also obtained prescriptions themselves for hundreds of pills of oxycodone through through the same channels every 30 days.
Erodici, Walker, and Vanghele were presented yesterday in Manhattan federal court before United States Magistrate Judge Kevin Nathaniel Fox and Capozziello was presented today. The case has been assigned to United States District Judge Kimba M. Wood.
Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, praised the investigative work of the FBI and thanked the New York State Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement for their assistance in the investigation. He added that the investigation is continuing.
The case is being handled by the Office's Complex Frauds Unit. Assistant United States Attorneys David B. Massey and Seetha Ramachandran are in charge of the prosecution.