#Bronx pill mill raid turns up apparent fighting chickens, roosters

Authorities raided a Bronx pill mill and found nearly 50 chickens and roosters suspected to be bred for illegal cockfighting, officials said.

Jeison Lebron, 28, and Alfredo Goris, 27, were arrested Friday night after exiting a building on W. 170th Street in the Highbridge neighborhood and charged for their role in a pill production and distribution operation, according to the city’s Special Narcotics Prosecutor.

A court-authorized search warrant revealed that the building’s basement had a drug laboratory outfitted with three industrial pill press machines used to make counterfeit pills, authorities said.

Agents also seized approximately 1.2 kilograms of heroin, 34 grams of fentanyl and 2.3 kilograms of methamphetamine — including 1,600 blue methamphetamine pills.

In a surprise discovery, the officials were confronted with a coop of 30 to 50 chickens and roosters believed to be used in cockfighting, according to the city’s Special Narcotics Prosecutor.

Investigators began surveilling Lebron after learning that three pill presses weighing more than 280 pounds were shipped from China to an apartment in Union City, NJ.

Lebron accepted delivery of the packages and allegedly drove them to the Bronx building, authorities said.

The defendants were arraigned over the weekend in Manhattan Criminal Court on charges of criminal possession of a controlled substance and criminally using drug paraphernalia. Goris was released without bail. Lebron was held on a prior case pending the outcome of a bail hearing.

“This is the first time our office has seen an illegal pill production operation of this scale, with three active pill presses,” said the city’s Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget G. Brennan. “The lethal combination of heroin, fentanyl and methamphetamine, disguised as familiar pills, would have put unsuspecting users at grave risk of overdose.”

The arrests were a joint operation of the city’s Special Narcotics Prosecutor, the NYPD and the DEA.