Inside the Codeine Black Market in Florida

Around 4 AM on April 16, three men in hooded sweatshirts approached the entrance to a Walgreens in Pembroke Pines, Florida. Surveillance footage shows one member of the trio—sporting an orange hoodie, tan backpack, and white socks as gloves—pry open a door using a large yellow crowbar, according to an affidavit recently filed in Broward County court.

Once inside, the three men ran to the pharmacy, where they broke a glass case filled with prescription medications. Within two minutes, they left the store with 1,587 painkiller pills and a pint of promethazine codeine, the prescription cough syrup often combined with drinks like Sprite to make the woozy concoction alternately known as "lean," "purple drank," and "sizzurp."

A month later, a multi-agency law enforcement task force caught up with the drugstore bandits after another Walgreens heist in Miami Gardens, roughly eight miles south of Pembroke Pines. Tracking devices had been installed on this batch of promethazine, and minutes after the May 10 burglary, cops pulled over a black Cadillac Escalade and arrested 26-year-old Bryan Pitter and 24-year-old Alonzo Hinson.

Later the same day, the bandits' alleged mastermind and an aspiring rapper, 24-year-old Darrish Martin, was also taken into custody. Upon executing search warrants on the car and Martin's residence, cops found an AK-47, multiple handguns, and roughly 300 rounds of ammunition.

The three men were initially charged with burglary, criminal mischief, grand theft, and oxycodone trafficking in Miami-Dade County criminal court. But last month, a state prosecutor filed a superseding indictment charging them with racketeering, burglary, grand theft, codeine possession, and trafficking several types of painkillers, among other charges. Authorities say the alleged thieves burglarized 46 South Florida pharmacies in an 11-month span, stealing tens of thousands of pain pills and hundreds of milliliters of prescription cough syrup.

The men have pleaded not guilty. But according to the criminal complaint, investigators found photos on Martin's Facebook and Instagram accounts that show him posing with cough syrup bottles still bearing the barcode labels of the stores from which they were stolen.

Long glamorized by Dirty South rap acts like Three 6 Mafia, Lil Wayne, and Future, lean has become a lucrative commodity in American cities with vibrant hip-hop scenes thanks in part to crackdowns on prescription drug "pill mills," according to experts and users. A pint that normally costs between $20 to $50 with a doctor's prescription and medical insurance is fetching $800 to $1,000 on the black market.

"In some areas, it is even more than that," Lisa McElhaney, president of the National Association of Drug Diversion Investigators, told VICE. "If there is a minimal supply, the cost is higher. Depending on the type and brand, the price also fluctuates."

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