Retired NYPD inspector Paul Mauro is urging parents to confront their college-bound children with stark warnings about campus drug dangers.
Mauro, a Fox News contributor, spoke out after a wave of drug-related deaths and trafficking arrests at universities across multiple states. The former police official delivered an unvarnished message to families preparing for the fall semester.
“If you’re sending a kid off to college these days, you better sit that child down and give that child a hard primer on what could possibly happen,” he said.
The warnings follow a recently unsealed federal indictment against two Queens teenagers, Moises Freire, 19, and Brian Peralta, 18. Prosecutors allege the pair supplied fentanyl to two young women at Manhattan’s Fashion Institute of Technology, killing one and leaving the other with serious injuries. The victims believed they were taking cocaine, according to reports.
Annabel Richter, 20, a Brazilian student who had moved to the U.S. To study at FIT, was found unresponsive in a dorm room alongside the surviving victim. The federal indictment contains a harrowing additional allegation: Freire raped the unconscious Richter and waited approximately 45 minutes before contacting campus security. Court records show he also texted photos of the naked victim to friends.
Both men pleaded not guilty Wednesday to federal charges of conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance resulting in death. Freire faces an additional charge of distributing a controlled substance with intent to commit rape.
FIT President Jason Schupbach addressed the case in a statement. “We are thankful to our teams from Public Safety and Residential Life for their immediate response in March, and also to the Department of Justice and the NYPD for their actions in March and their continued focus on this case,” he wrote. “As a community, we continue to support each other through difficult times.”
Mauro questioned why the FIT case had not generated broader national coverage. “It happened on a campus, and the only thing I can conjure is that it happened in New York City, and so the powers that be, as we come into an election season, would rather these rape stories or these campus crime stories occur someplace far from New York where they could have any impact on the elections here,” he said.
The crisis extends well beyond New York. At the University of Mississippi, students Aidan Hamilton, 18, and Robert Strang, 20, were found dead of suspected overdoses in September. Investigators recovered kratom-related products, sometimes called “gas station heroin,” at both scenes. The discovery led to federal charges against a vape shop clerk and his son for selling banned compounds in retail packaging.
Pennsylvania authorities announced their own major bust, charging 14 men including current and former students in an alleged cocaine trafficking ring operating out of off-campus fraternity houses at Penn State. Former student Agostino Abbatiello, 24, allegedly ran the network under the nickname “Pablo Pledgescabar.” Fraternity pledges were forced to cut, package, and bag cocaine for distribution across the University Park campus, according to a criminal complaint. The supply chain traced back to larger networks in Philadelphia and New York City.
Penn State responded with a statement acknowledging the global nature of narcotics trafficking while calling the proximity to campus “very concerning.” The university noted that Vice President for Student Affairs Andrea Dowhower had shared prevention messaging with the community and that additional communications on health and safety had been sent directly to students and parents.
Mauro traced the campus drug pipeline to international sources. “You got the Chinese making this stuff. It goes to the cartels in Mexico and South America. It gets brought up here into the country, and it’s [distributed onto campuses now],” he said.
The former inspector elaborated on the chemical arms race fueling the crisis. “They keep coming. Why? Chinese make this stuff in labs. They just change the formula all the time, and one of the reasons for that is they want to stay ahead of the charging here in America, the charges that get captured by the drug laws,” he continued.
Mauro framed the danger in stark terms. “There is a panoply of drugs out there that will destroy your kids,” he said.
He delivered a final warning about the deliberate targeting of young Americans. “It really is a minefield out there these days, and it’s not an accident. Our enemies know what they’re doing, and your kids are the target,” he added.
