Quaalude ring busted after 3-year investigation
The three-year investigation, dubbed Operation: Lude Behavior by Nassau District Attorney Kathleen Rice, culminated with the arrests Tuesday night when 13 search warrants were executed on several locations, including two drug manufacturing companies, authorities said.
The U.S. attorney's office charged the man they described as the ringleader, Dennis Fairley, 65, of Manhattan, with conspiracy to distribute methaqualone, the generic name for quaaludes. Fairley's wife, Ana Sanchez, and his brother, Thomas Fairley, have also been charged for what prosecutors said is their role in the quaalude distribution network.
Quaaludes are a sedative-hypnotic drug that became popular as prescription and a recreational drug in the 1960s and 1970s.
The investigation began in November 2007 when Second Precinct Police Officers Matt McCartin and Paul Catanzaro arrested a man on petty larceny charges.
According to prosecutors, the investigation began in November 2007 when Nassau County Police Officers Matt McCartin and Paul Catanzaro arrested a man on petty larceny charges. The man gave the officers information about a loan shark who also sold drugs, including quaaludes. Investigators identified the man, Ralph Marazzo, was part of the drug distribution ring, prosecutors said.
From there, investigators discovered multiple suppliers and dealers, mostly on the North Shore. Investigators were able to identify users, street-level dealers, middlemen and eventually Fairley, the manufacturer.
"What initially began as a simple petty larceny arrest uncovered a multidimensional drug operation that spanned across the country," Nassau Police Commissioner Lawrence Mulvey said at a news conference Wednesday. "It was the intuition and investigative prowess of all the police officers and investigators involved . . . that brought this illegal drug enterprise to a close."
Fairley, a lab director and chemist, is the owner of chemical testing laboratories in Brooklyn and Emeryville, Calif., prosecutors said. Both labs manufactured hundreds of thousands of quaaludes a year.
Prosecutors said drug dealers Jason Abbate and Frank Bisman put 25,000 quaaludes pills on the streets of Long Island and Queens each month. The pills were soled through a network of dealers before hitting the streets at a price as high as $35 per pill, prosecutors said.
Search warrants executed in Nassau, Suffolk, Brooklyn, Queens and California yielded about 21,000 pills from the Brooklyn lab; about four and a half pounds of powder, $350,000 in cash, a large bag containing many unfilled pill capsules and a pill press machine from Fairley's Manhattan residence, five cars, two firearms, about 41/2 pounds of unfinished powder, about 2 pounds of finished powder and a pill press from the California lab, prosecutors said.
Investigators also executed seizure warrants for several luxury cars they said the defendants used to transport quaaludes for distribution, and seized more than $1 million from bank accounts believed to contain proceeds from drug sales, prosecutors said.
"This case should serve as a model of what law enforcement agencies can do together and as a warning to those who manufacture and sell illegal drugs," Rice said. "If you think you are untouchable and that no one is watching, think again. You are wrong."
In addition to the criminal actions, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York has filed civil complaints against several homes and the labs that were used to manufacture and facilitate the distribution of quaaludes, including Fairley's Manhattan apartment, which is worth about $1.4 million, prosecutors said.
"Criminals should remember that no matter how driven they are to circumvent the law, we are equally as committed to finding and locking them up, wherever they traffic in illegal drugs," said Associate Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent in Charge Wilbert Plummer.
Posted Wednesday, April 7, 2010
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