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Thanks to a solid tip, Detective Lt. Guido Bussinelli led an investigation that targeted Anthony Kopiecki, 28, and Molly Campbell, 29, after they sold the drugs to buyers in Edgewater and Harrison, Mahwah Police Chief James Batelli said Monday.
Kopiecki's LinkedIn account lists him as a resident MD at Saint Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston. He previously was a GNC salesman for two years and a mortgage consultant for four before receiving a medical degree from St. George's University in the West Indies.
Detective Michael Grassi obtained a search warrant executed earlier this month at the couple’s Jersey City apartment.
Uniting for the May 7 raid, the chief said, were detectives and uniformed officers from Mahwah and Jersey City police and the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office.
Besides the drugs, they found packaging materials and proceeds, Batelli said.
Although nearly all of America’s recent drug battle has been against heroin, “One of the fastest-emerging drug problems in the United States is the synthetic drug market,” the chief said.
“Every time the government makes one compound illegal, chemists alter the formula lightly to make a substance that is no longer controlled,” Batelli said. “One of the biggest dangers is that users have no idea what they're taking or at what dose.”
Both Kopiecki and Campbell were sent to the Bergen County Jail on drug-selling charges before a judge ordered them released less than 24 hours later under New Jersey’s 2017 bail reform law.
A continuing investigation was expected to produce more charges, Batelli said.
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