Police in Bucks County break up alleged drug ring

Falls Township, Pa. (WTXF) - Police in Bucks County think they have broken up a ring selling opioids meant for the incinerator.

A mountain of dangerous opioids and other painkillers filled a display table to overflowing Friday-- 200,000 pills worth $1.2 million dollars.

"This is an awful example of that old saying that 'one man's trash is another man's treasure.," Bucks County District Attorney Matt Weintraub said.

Here's how the scheme worked-- pharmaceutical companies sent pills marked for destruction-- they were damaged during manufacturing for example to the Wheelabrator Falls Waste Disposal Facility in Falls Township, Bucks County.

According to officials, several workers there and another man on the outside knew the pills were on their way. Officials say they used a crane and claw to carefully cull the pills from random garbage and set them aside to remove them from the facility before they could be incinerated.

Officials say those pills made it from the employees to street level drug dealers, street gangs and ultimately to addicts all over the region.

"Here we have the Wheelabrator Four and you have to only imagine how much thought and planning and detail went into the calculation."

The probe-- which began with a small time marijuana bust last November-- is ongoing and so law-enforcement would not say exactly how old the workers knew what was coming and when.

"This was no fluke that they knew," FOX 29's Bruce Gordon asked. Weintraub replied, "Absolutely. It was all explicitly planned out and targeted."

Authorities say two of the at least four men involved in the scheme are now in custody and more arrests are expected.