Drug Trafficking Ring Busted: $50-100M Worth of Pharmaceuticals Stolen
AMAURY VILLA, a 40-year-old Cuban national, has been sentenced to 98 months in prison for his role in the theft of pharmaceuticals worth $50-100 million from an Eli Lilly Company warehouse in Enfield, Connecticut. VILLA, who was last residing in Miami, Florida, will also serve three years of supervised release following his imprisonment.
According to court documents, VILLA, along with Amed Villa, Yosmany Nunez, and Alexander Marquez, planned and executed the theft in early 2010. The group traveled from Florida to Connecticut to gather information about the warehouse facility and the surrounding area. They purchased tools needed to break into the warehouse in Flushing, New York, and then traveled to Connecticut.
On the evening of March 13, 2010, the group dropped off a ladder in the rear parking lot of the warehouse facility and left. Marquez drove a tractor trailer to the facility, and VILLA and Amed Villa carried the ladder to the building, cut a hole in the roof, and disabled the alarm system. They then loaded more than 40 pallets of pharmaceuticals into the tractor trailer, valued between $50 and $100 million.
The pallets included thousands of boxes of Zyprexa, Cymbalta, Prozac, Gemzar, and other medicines. The individuals who participated in the theft split up in Connecticut, and Marquez drove the tractor trailer to Florida, where the pharmaceuticals were transferred into self-storage units in the Miami area.
On October 14, 2011, law enforcement authorities searched a storage facility in Florida and recovered pharmaceuticals that had been stolen from the Enfield warehouse. VILLA has been detained since his arrest on May 3, 2012, and has been serving a 140-month sentence for a related federal conviction.
Judge Janet Bond Arterton ordered VILLA to pay restitution in the amount of $60,994,213. VILLA’s co-defendants, Amed Villa, Yosmany Nunez, Alexander Marquez, and Rafael Lopez, have also pleaded guilty and been sentenced for their roles in the theft.
The case is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Enfield Police Department, with the assistance of several other U.S. Attorney’s Offices and federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Anastasia E. King and Douglas P. Morabito are prosecuting the case.
Key Facts
- State: Connecticut
- Category: Drug Trafficking|White Collar Crime|Organized Crime
- Source: DOJ Press Release ↗
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