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Kenova police make drug bust
Courtesy of the Kenova Police Department The Kenova Police Department busted a prescription pill operation Friday night following a two-year investigation.
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KENOVA — A major player in the sale of illegal prescription pills was arrested Friday night.
Kenova resident David Ryan Adkins was charged with seven counts of possession with intent, all felonies. The 26-year-old’s arrest was the culmination of a two-year investigation by the Kenova Police and Corporal David Reynolds, who said Adkins has been running an elaborate operation out of his home at 924 Walnut St.
“He’s got quite an operation going,” Reynolds said. “This will definitely make a big impact. A lot of people here in Kenova rely on him for their supply.”
Reynolds said the department has been making undercover drug buys and busting sellers for the past two years, and it all pointed back to Adkins. According to his investigation and backed by elaborate records that Adkins kept at his house, there are 12 people selling for him and more than 300 customers.
“There were several books with who was working for him, how much they sold and who the buyers are,” Reynolds said.
Adkins also had more than $3,000 on him when officers made the arrest, held by rubber bands in three different bundles - what Reynolds estimates Adkins was making on a daily basis.
Also found in the home were Oxycontin, Adderall, Strattera, Lunesta and a liquid steroid, along with homemade pills and a 40-caliber handgun and ammunition.
Reynolds also collected numerous receipts for visits to three dentists, 15 doctors and emergency rooms that resulted in Adkins or one of his sellers getting a prescription.
“The people that work for him go to the dentists and doctors for prescriptions, and he’d pay for the visit and the prescription,” Reynolds said. “Then they’d sell it, and give him 70 percent of the profit.”
Records show that Adkins also was ordering prescriptions online through Medco, paying a $6 co-pay for dozens of OxyContin that went for $80 a pill on the street.
“Anyway he could get pills,” he said. “A headache, a toothache, a backache. He’s had them all.”
Reynolds said Adkins is a former Marshall University student who majored in chemistry. He started selling in 2004, a year after his brother died of an prescription pill overdose.
He started selling to friends, but when they moved away, they enabled his business to grow rapidly on a multi-state level. He is known to have connections in Florida, North Carolina and Michigan, Reynolds said.
But many of his customers and sellers are located in and around Kenova. While serving the warrant just before 10 p.m. Friday, a buyer called Adkins’ Apple iPhone wanting pills. Reynolds said the phone also contained text messages to and from buyers negotiating prices.
In the home, officers also confiscated digital scales, two computers, pill splitters and lighters that had been hollowed out and used to carry pills.
While the inside of the home had numerous signs of a major drug operation, Reynolds said Adkins played it smooth. There wasn’t a daily stream of buyers and sellers coming and going at the house. They only came when they needed more pills or were making a cash drop.
And the two vehicles Kenova Police seized also weren’t extravagant. They took a 2001 Ford Explorer and a 1998 Honda Accord. Reynolds suspects Adkins may have been stashing cash in vehicle compartments because his bank records don’t show any exorbitant deposits or withdrawals.
“He didn’t expect this,” Reynolds said. “He didn’t know it was coming.”
Adkins could face a federal trial with a sentence of a minimum of five years in prison because a weapon was found at the scene of a drug crime, Reynolds said. Adkins denied any wrongdoing and invoked his right to have an attorney.
Sergeant Steve Perry and officers Justin Wallace, Brandon Willis and Jarad Hanshaw of the Kenova Police Department also participated in the investigation. Assisting at the scene were the Ceredo Police Department, Wayne County Drug Task Force and West Virginia State Police out of Cabell and Wayne counties.
