Two men were busted for operating a deadly counterfeit pill factory out of a Harlem apartment, where authorities seized over 30,000 fentanyl-laced pills and loaded guns, prosecutors announced Wednesday.
Shamel Robinson, 31, of Manhattan, and Brandon Morris, 30, from Rock Hill, S.C., face multiple charges of criminal possession of controlled substances and criminal possession of weapons following a massive raid.
The NYPD’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Strike Force, along with the Drug Enforcement Administration, state police and federal agencies led a months-long investigation that dismantled the deadly counterfeit pill operation in an apartment on Frederick Douglass Blvd. near W. 147th St., according to the Special Narcotics Prosecutor’s Office.
On Feb. 3, Morris was busted leaving the apartment with a red backpack containing 11,000 counterfeit pills, the office said.
After the arrest, a search of the apartment uncovered about 22,000 counterfeit oxycodone pills, 10,000 methamphetamine pills and over 13 pounds of methamphetamine, as well as four pounds of xylazine, a veterinary sedative found in about 30 percent of overdose deaths in the city. Xylazine, often mixed with fentanyl, is resistant to naloxone, an overdose reversal drug.
The pills were marked with “M30,” a common counterfeit pill stamp used to imitate prescription oxycodone.
Also inside the apartment were two pill presses, three loaded firearms and a box of ammunition, prosecutors charged. One of the pill presses had been shipped from China to Yonkers, and later to the apartment.
“This indictment demonstrates the critical work we are doing to shut down the illegal drug and firearms pipeline hurting our communities,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said in a statement. “The large sum of opioids seized—in addition to three loaded firearms—posed a tremendous threat to countless New Yorkers.”