A Quebec man who moved thousands of oxycodone pills onto a Mohawk reserve straddling the Canada-U.S. border paid his couriers in drugs instead of cash -- at a rate of three or four pills for every 25 sold -- fuelling rampant opiate addiction, U.S. prosecutors said.
Robert Jon Lazore, 42, of Snye, Que., was sentenced Wednesday in New York to more than 12 years in a U.S. prison in a plea bargain after his extradition from Canada last year.
Lazore managed a large operation that started with him buying large quantities of the pills -- 5,000 at a time -- from two Quebec suppliers in either 40-mg or 80-mg strength.
He hid the pills in a secret compartment in his vehicle and in a red trailer in front of his home. He personally sold some pills out of his house, but his primary business was exportation though the Akwesasne Mohawk reserve, which straddles the borders of Ontario, Quebec and New York State along the Saint Lawrence River.
For his exports, he used at least eight couriers who would take pill consignments of 100 or 200 tablets each to sell in both Canada and the United States. Each 80-mg pill sold for between $90 and $140, prosecutors said.
