Pubdate: Sun, 07 Dec 2003
Source: Lexington Herald-Leader (KY)
Copyright: 2003 Lexington Herald-Leader
Contact:  http://www.kentucky.com/mld/heraldleader/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/240
Author: Tom Lasseter, David Stephenson
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/oxycontin.htm (Oxycontin/Oxycodone)
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NUEVO LAREDO, MEXICO, FALL 1999

MEXICAN CONNECTION

Crossing The Border

By late 1999, David Perkins was moving thousands of dollars in painkiller 
pills from a sleazy Mexican border town to his corner of McCreary County.

The question of how he started that route is something of a family dispute.

Perkins said the scheme began in the fall of 1999 as he was watching the 
hours roll by at the University of Tennessee hospital. He was waiting for 
his brother to get out of surgery, and, as usual, worrying about money. 
He'd moved his family to Pine Knot, but things there weren't much better 
than in Harlan.

Sitting in the waiting room, Perkins said, he struck up a conversation with 
his brother-in-law Dewayne Harris. After he told Harris how broke he was, 
Perkins said, Harris offered to help him out.

Harris had a good connection in Mexico for the painkiller OxyContin, 
Perkins said, and he was getting it cheap.

Perkins' father had given him $300 for the stay in Knoxville. Harris 
suggested that they share a room and that the $300 go toward getting some Oxys.

The proposal came with a promise, Perkins said: The money would double quickly.

After a few weeks, Perkins said, he had $600, which he reinvested as soon 
as he could. Then $1,200 came back, and Perkins put that into Harris' 
hands. In no time at all, he had $2,400, Perkins said.

Before long, Perkins was ready to go to the source with Harris. He wanted 
to see Mexico.

For his part, Harris denied ever having the hospital waiting room 
conversation, or helping get Perkins started in the OxyContin trade. 
Perkins, he said, didn't need convincing.

"There wasn't no 300 or 600. We went to Mexico," Harris said.

And once they started, the OxyContin came in by the bagful.

Perkins described the first trip almost as a raucous vacation:

They drove a Chevrolet Monte Carlo 1,300 miles to Laredo, Texas, and then 
bought a beat-up car with local tags. When they crossed into the Mexican 
town of Nuevo Laredo with Texas plates, the border guards just waved them 
through.

During that initial visit, Perkins visited a whorehouse district -- "Boys 
Town," a notorious red-light zone of legalized prostitution walled off from 
the rest of Nuevo Laredo. While Perkins enjoyed himself, Harris went off 
and bought the OxyContin.

Both men agree about going to Laredo and Perkins wandering off to Boys 
Town. After first saying he went into Mexico, though, Harris changed his 
story. He said he arranged to buy OxyContin from a Mexican source and had 
it delivered to Laredo.

"I never crossed the border," Harris said.

Although he wasn't certain, Perkins said he probably visited Mexico six or 
seven times. He said he saw the doctor's office that was supplying the 
drugs only once, when Harris showed it to him in case they got separated.

"They've got a damn pill factory down there. You just go in there and tell 
them what you want. They just lay a menu out," Perkins said.

An office visit cost $25 and the OxyContin was cheap: 40-milligram pills 
for $10 apiece. In Kentucky, those same pills sold for $40.

Harris and Perkins didn't even have to lug the OxyContin back across the 
border, Perkins said. For $10 a package, the doctor had the drugs delivered 
to the men in Laredo. The pills were stuffed into plastic bags and taped to 
a courier's legs, Perkins said.

"I mean, you look at OxyContin, it's not that big. It's like aspirin; take 
1,800 aspirin out and drop them in a baggie and then tape it up," Perkins 
said. "You can put them about anywhere."

Perkins couldn't recall the exact number of pills that he and Harris 
bought. Usually, Perkins said, his order was 500 20-milligram pills, worth 
$10,000 on the street in Kentucky.

Perkins, then in his early 30s, was reaching his peak.

The boy who'd once had coal dust smeared on his face was becoming something 
different.

Scott Sargent, the fiance of Perkins' sister, said it wasn't hard to 
notice. As Perkins branched out his business, Sargent made at least one 
delivery for him.

He also heard more than a little bit about Perkins' plans.

"He wanted to be the man of McCreary County, is what he said."
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman