29 charged in drug ring based at suburban New York mall

NEW CITY, N.Y. -- More than two dozen people have been charged in an alleged drug trafficking ring that sold oxycodone and heroin in and around suburban Rockland County, N.Y., reports CBS New York.

Seventeen defendants are charged in a federal indictment unsealed Wednesday. Twelve others are being charged by the state.

Throughout the last year, the organization sold the drugs in the parking lot of the Palisades Center mall in West Nyack, N.Y., at the Mount Ivy Mobile Home Park in Pomona, N.Y., and in rented rooms at various motels around Rockland County, according to the indictment.

The group and its associates conspired to distribute more than 50,000 oxycodone pills, valued at more than $1 million, authorities said. The defendants allegedly acquired the powerful painkillers by using forged and fraudulent prescriptions.

Authorities identified the alleged ringleader as Victor Esteban, 27, according to Christopher Goldrick of the Rockland County Drug Task Force.

"Friends would bring friends to Palisades mall, to the Nanuet malls, to the hotels," Goldrick said. "These individuals had a very tight network. They all worked together. They worked off their phones. They worked off of texting."

One defendant, for example, used his home computer to print 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 are expected to appear in court in White Plains on Wednesday.