Students turned drug dealers: How some US fraternities entered the narcotics business

It was common for small bags containing half a gram of cocaine to be passed from hand to hand at parties hosted by two Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) fraternities. Students seeking admission to Delta Upsilon and Sigma Chi were required to take part in preparing the drug: they cut and packaged the white powder in fraternity houses located off campus. What was meant to be a rite of initiation ended up turning several pledges into accomplices and their leader, student Agostino Abbatiello, into the biggest drug kingpin ever to emerge from Penn State, one of the most prestigious academic institutions in the United States. Abbatiello cultivated suppliers in Philadelphia and New York who sold him “large quantities” of cocaine, as well as several low-level dealers working for him. For two years, the network operated in plain sight until police dismantled it.Abbatiello, 12 other Penn State students and alumni, and the father of one of them were criminally charged in mid-August. The 14 defendants face a long list of charges, including participation in a corrupt organization, conspiracy, and dealing in the proceeds of illegal activities. All were swept up in Operation Drugs Unlimited, led by the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office and the State College Police Department. The case is the latest example of U.S. college students who, rather than focusing on their studies, became involved in the drug trade through fraternity networks.“The actual drug dealing was largely from friend to friend, fraternity brother to fraternity brother, acquaintance to acquaintance, and at fraternity houses and or during parties or social engagements,” State Attorney Dave Sunday said of the Penn State case at a press conference. “In fact, we found a pattern of events that showed cutting and bagging cocaine was, for some pledges, an indoctrination into the Delta Upsilon and Sigma Chi fraternities,” he added.Penn State’s student drug dealersAccording to Sunday, Abbatiello, 24, and his associates bought packages of cocaine in Philadelphia and New York, cities they traveled to frequently. Their main customers were drawn from Penn State’s 86,000 students. Authorities say the network operated at least between 2023 and 2024 and that no university employees were involved.“This was very serious criminal conduct. There was nothing junior or childlike about this type of conduct,” said Sunday.The organization began to unravel in September 2024, when an informant approached police and revealed that a student known as “T-Rob” was selling large quantities of cocaine out of the Delta Upsilon fraternity house. He was identified as Thomas Robinson, 22, who was identified as the organization’s second-in-command.Over the following three months, the informant took part in an undercover operation. He contacted Robinson through Snapchat to purchase cocaine and made the payments via Venmo. In December of that year, police arrested Robinson at the fraternity house. At first, the student believed his fraternity brothers were playing a prank on him. As he resisted arrest, he warned officers: “I’m going to kick your ass.” A Taser quickly made clear that it was no joke. His father, Paul Robinson, a Pittsburgh attorney, was later arrested as well, accused of concealing evidence, namely drugs and cash linked to the network that he allegedly hid in a safe, and of obstructing the investigation.During the raid, police seized narcotics and a handgun from Thomas Robinson. After his arrest, the student agreed to cooperate with authorities. His assistance helped advance a criminal investigation that lasted 20 months and is still ongoing. In court, Robinson testified that he had purchased roughly three kilograms of cocaine from Abbatiello for $120,000.Drug dealing in the dormsThis is not an isolated case. While investigating a California drug trafficker, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents followed the trail of one of his East Coast customers all the way to fraternity houses at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), Duke University and Appalachian State University. In November 2018, the agency opened a separate case that ultimately led to charges against 21 people, most of them students at those institutions, and the dismantling of a criminal operation that generated more than $1.5 million over three years.The scheme operated between 2017 and 2020 out of the fraternity houses of Phi Gamma Delta, Kappa Sigma and Beta Theta Pi. Using what authorities described as a “very sophisticated method,” the organization distributed cocaine, marijuana, Xanax pills, steroids, psychedelic mushrooms and other substances. With the exception of marijuana, which was transported across the country by road, the drugs were mailed from California by the supplier, Francisco Javier Ochoa. The cash proceeds from the sales made the reverse journey, also through the postal service.The indictment details cocaine transactions worth as much as $15,000 conducted inside facilities belonging to the Beta Theta Pi fraternity. Those purchases were made by DEA informants as part of the investigation.When announcing the charges in December 2020, Matthew G.T. Martin, then the U.S. attorney for the Middle District of North Carolina, stressed that this was far removed from a typical college experience. “This was not the situation where you have single users — a 19-year-old sipping a beer or you have someone who is taking a puff of a joint on the back porch of a frat house,” he said. “These are 21 hardened drug dealers.”“They went into the wrong business”Authorities dubbed the investigation Operation Spiderweb. Over the course of 20 months, they painstakingly spun a web that ultimately ensnared 13 drug dealers, most of them students at the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin), in late 2020. Prosecutors accused them of distributing fentanyl, LSD and methamphetamine in the West Campus area.The organization, made up of young people just over 20, sold drugs on and off campus and earned more than $1 million from the business. The group also dealt Adderall and Xanax, prescription medications that authorities said had been adulterated with other substances.During the arrests, police seized not only drugs but also about $100,000 in cash, firearms and ballistic vests.“They decided to turn their talents into this illicit operation,” DEA special agent Steven Whipple said in December 2020 when announcing the investigation’s results. “They were pretty sophisticated about how they did it.”Eight of those arrested were UT Austin students between the ages of 21 and 23. They were pursuing degrees in fields as varied as business, chemistry, mathematics and psychology. Another defendant, Rose Rodríguez-Rabin, had been a professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Authorities accused her of selling Adderall laced with methamphetamine.“What is particularly disturbing about this case is the fact that what appeared to be extremely educated and talented people who had many opportunities in life to choose from instead focused their business acumen … and education in dealing illegal, dangerous and counterfeit drugs,” U.S. attorney Gregg Sofer said at the time during a news conference. “Today’s indictment demonstrates that they went into the wrong business.”Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition