Pill City: How Two Honor Roll Students Foiled the Feds and Built a Drug Empire

Kevin Deutsch

Jan 2017 · Macmillan + ORM

About this ebook

In 2015, Baltimore plunged into the worst American riots in recent history. In the chaos, two high school honor-roll students, “Brick” and “Wax, used their smarts, computer skills, ambition and gang connections to change the world of illegal drugs forever. With their gang associates, they looted pharmacies and robbed dealers, stealing over one million doses of prescription narcotics and heroin with a street value of more than $100 million.

“Brick” and “Wax” were not going to sell drugs on corners; they used location-based technology and encrypted messaging software to dispatch ordered drugs via delivery drivers—an Uber-like service that eliminated street deals and easily tapped phones. They were soon supplying cities along the East Coast, creating a whole new class of opioid addicts with the FBI and DEA trailing in their wake. To ensure their supply of drugs did not run out, the teens formed an alliance with members of the Sinaloa cartel, headed by El Chapo.

Veteran Newsday crime reporter Kevin Deutsch has been reporting on the ground in drug-ravaged neighborhoods for over a year. He’s seen the bodies. Across America, thousands are dying from opioid overdoses. This middle-class crisis has been well documented, but the inner cities, where families are being swallowed up by addiction, have been ignored. Deutsch brings us into this underworld, where social unrest and cutting-edge technology allow criminals to seed the next wave of dysfunction and despair.

Ratings and reviews

An amazing true story brilliantly told. If you like true crime you HAVE to read this story

I have serious reservations about the credibility of this book.

Amazing that he was able to report so complete of a story.

About the author

Kevin Deutsch is an award-winning crime writer and author of two books: The Triangle: A Year on the Ground with New York's Bloods and Crips, and Pill City: How Two Honor Roll Students Foiled the Feds and Built a Drug Empire. A staff writer for the criminal justice journalism nonprofit Bronx Justice News, Deutsch hosts the crime podcast "A Dark Turn" on Authors on the Air Global Radio Network. He previously worked on staff at Newsday, the New York Daily News, The Miami Herald, The Palm Beach Post, and The Riverdale Press. His work has also appeared in Newsweek, The New York Times, The Forward, Columbia Journalism Review, The Independent, the Orlando Sentinel, and The New York Post. Kevin specializes in journalism about street gangs and drug trafficking and has received multiple prizes for his writing about crime and national news events, including an Associated Press award for justice beat reporting. A graduate of Florida International University, Kevin has taught journalism at Queens College and Hofstra University.