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By Jackie Valley (contact) 
Thursday, Jan. 3, 2013 | 2:02 p.m.
A Las Vegas man was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for trafficking prescription drugs between here and Alaska, Nevada’s U.S. Attorney Daniel G. Bogden announced Thursday.
Nicholas Ghafouria, 28, had pleaded guilty to conspiracy, drug and money laundering charges, officials said. Federal authorities said Ghafouria organized the distribution of more than 4,000 oxycodone pills in Alaska and laundered at least $1.2 million in cash proceeds between May 2009 and October 2010.
Ghafouria, one of 27 defendants charged in the scheme, shipped or transported the pills on airplanes from Las Vegas to Alaska, where the pills sold for $65 each, officials said. In turn, co-conspirators in Alaska would send money back to Ghafouria via couriers or deposit proceeds into a bank account. At Ghafouria’s direction, people in Las Vegas would withdraw the money.
Nineteen of the defendants charged were from Alaska, while the other eight resided in Las Vegas, officials said. Most received a prison sentence.
Ghafouria must also forfeit more than $1.2 million in cash and property and serve three years of supervised release upon completing his prison sentence.
“Over the last several years, we have been working with state and local law enforcement and health care providers to attack the growing prescription drug abuse problem in Nevada,” Bodgen wrote in a statement. “Since January 2010, over 100 individuals, including four doctors and a pharmacist, have been charged in Nevada with unlawfully distributing highly addicted prescription painkillers.”
Multiple law enforcement agencies in Nevada and Alaska investigated this case.
I've had the pills for pain...anyone moronic enough to pay $65 for one pill deserves to get fleeced. They cut down the pain but did they have an effect on me where I said "gotta have more, they make me feel great?".....no. Who does? I simply don't know how you get addicted to them.
Lock him up...see you when you're 42. Get a real job then. There are no short cuts.
What a waste of taxpayer money! Just for jail expenses.
15 years times $40,000 per year = $600,000.
Time to start issuing realistic laws for drugs.
These laws exist and work fine in other countries.
BUT NOT IN THE US. Why? Maybe because of the billions made by the corporations who run the prisons.
^^ they crush them and snort them. Opiates and their synthetic cousins are physically addictive. If you use them long enough you will become dependent. It even happened to Steve Wynn. This is a long article, the part about his physical addiction is past the middle.
http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/news/2010/...
Oxycodone is an opioid, only prescribed for severe pain control. It isn't a drug you want available to anyone who isn't in pain.
Some of you seem to think this is aleve or something.
What a waste of taxpayer money! Just for jail expenses.
15 years times $40,000 per year = $600,000.
Time to start issuing realistic laws for drugs.
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That's so superficial. What about the ones who get hooked and can't fund their addiction? They go out and rob, steal and possibly maim or kill in the process. What about those "costs". How about the guy who overdoses and spends 2 weeks in a hospital or treatment facility at taxpayer cost? I think it's utterly futile to try and calculate the "real" costs. There are just too many "domino effects" to make a blanket statement about incarceration costs, meanwhile disregarding the costs to society by not pursuing these people.
OK, 27 defendants and the organization distributed more then 4,000 pills on airplanes with a forfeiture of $1.2 million. How many of these pills went to members of Metro and their associates ... or were those pills obtained and distributed by a 'favored' lieutenant? John L. Smith wrote about Lt. Menger two times and then nobody is reporting a thing. Not even Jeff German - the courthouse specialist. So what criminal case was ever filed against Menger? Was he terminated or given a fraudulent medical retirement. Maybe the ones making the decisions are the ones using OXY.
Chill out a bit. This is not 411.
I agree with Bob635 this is a waste of tax payers money. No matter how many people you lock up...some people will still get addicted. Better to spend the money on treatment and education.
You can't pad the planet for stupid people.
Not to mention they (the feds) then make it impossible for people to get the pain medication when they really need it, because the doctors are now afraid of the DEA coming after them.
You will always have people who can't use drugs responsibly. Just like some people can't eat without eating more than they should or gambling ore anything else for that matter.
This is bad news for Rush Limbauh.
"from Las Vegas to Alaska, where the pills sold for $65 ..."
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WooT Alaskan Rush Limbaugher s LoL
4000 * 65 = $260,000. Apparently the feds can't do math.
This article must be a mistake. Oxycodone is nothing more than Percoset with another name. They must mean Oxycontin. I take 3 Oxycodone a day for lower back pain, I don't see how anybody could become addicted to them.
Regarding Rush Limbass, he was addicted to OxyContin NOT Oxycodone.
Still, they paying $65 for 1 pill of Oxycontin in Alaska?
How many mm per pill we talking here?