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QUEENS — Authorities arrested two people accused of selling powerful synthetic drugs linked to a deadly overdose last year during an early-morning raid at a Long Island City high-rise Tuesday, officials said.
Brian Parker, 34, and Victoria Koleski, 29, were both nabbed at 4545 Center Boulevard and hit with drug conspiracy charges for selling designer drugs online, including a synthetic opioid more powerful than morphine, federal prosecutors said.
The substances peddled by Parker, of Long Island City, were linked to a fatal 2016 overdose in Wisconsin, authorities said. He used internet-based companies to manufacture and sell drugs with major hallucinogenic effects, prosecutors said.
After learning about the Wisconsin overdose, investigators began probing one of Parker’s websites and found that he used other conspirators, including Koleski, to send and receive packages for distribution, prosecutors said.
Parker’s accomplices received raw materials from China and other places through the mail, then repackaged and flipped them to Parker. He then manufactured those materials into chemicals to sell online and ultimately sent them back to his co-conspirators, who distributed them, officials said.
Over a six-day span beginning on June 30, Koleski shipped more than 200 parcels from a Farmingdale, N.J., post office, many containing controlled substance analogues that Parker was selling online, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Parker and Koleski were charged with conspiring to distribute controlled substance analogues and distributing and possessing with intent to distribute the hallucinogenic designer drugs, prosecutors said.
Parker has two prior convictions for federal drug crimes, though details of those cases were not immediately available.
He and Koleski were due in Federal Court in Newark, N.J., around 2 p.m. Tuesday.
Attorney information for Parker and Koleski wasn’t immediately available.
