Crime & Safety

Woodbridge Man's Death Began Probe into NYC Oxy Trafficking Ring

Dr. Hector Castro and his assistant were arrested on charges of selling oxycodone prescriptions from his New York medical clinic.


A Manhattan doctor and his assistant were allegedly responsible for selling thousands of prescriptions for the painkiller Oxycodone in the past several years that resulted in the sale over more than 500,000 pills worth at least $10 million on the black market, officials said.

Dr. Hector Castro, 51, and his assistant, Patricia Valera, 28, were charged separately with the prescription scam last Tuesday, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) said. 

Castro, the founder and medical director of Itzamna Medical Center in the Gramercy section of Manhattan, had been selling the prescriptions at least since 2011. 

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That was when the death of a Woodbridge man in December from an overdose of Oxycodone caused Woodbridge police to get suspicious.

The dead man - who hasn't been named - had a prescription in his home where his body was found, and Castro, an internal medicine physician, was the doctor who allegedly signed off on the prescription.

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The man who ODed on the oxycodone had obtained the prescription a day earlier, the DEA said in a press release.

Police and federal authorities began noticing the huge quantity of prescriptions the New York City doctor had that were being filled in New Jersey, and bypassing New York State's prescription monitoring efforts.

Castro allegedly charged at least 100 Oxycodone-seeking patients $125 per prescription for the painkiller. His assistant, Valera - who went by the nickname "Kardashian" because of her allegedly lavish lifestyle - had her own drug trafficking game on the side, DEA officials said.

They alleged that Valera stole prescription forms from Castro, and that she and her husband were faking signatures on the prescriptions to get the drugs. Officials said that Valera charged $500 per prescription, and that included delivery by her husband, who served as the courier for the drugs.

Officials said that they sold the prescriptions to two Pennsylvania drug rings. DEA officials arrested 43 drug traffickers, including the heads of the gangs. It was one of the biggest drug nabbing of its kind in Pennsylvania's history, officials said.

Castro, who faces 5-1/2 years in prison on each of the 39 counts of Criminal Sale of a Prescription for a Controlled Substance he was charged with, pleaded not guilty at an arraignment before Judge James Burke on March 26 in Manhattan Supreme Court. His bail was set at a $500,000 bond.

Valera was charged with 464 counts, including 155 counts of Forgery in the 2nd Degree, 155 counts of Criminal Possession of a Forged Instrument in the 2nd Degree, and 152 counts of Criminal Diversion of Prescription Medications and Prescriptions in the 4th Degree, officials said.

The charges against Valera stemming from 155 prescriptions for narcotic painkillers, which she forged and sold between August 2011 and January 2013.

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