How Penn State students ran an alleged cocaine ring – until it all fell apart

They came to Penn State from across the US, varsity athletes and top students drawn to the university’s strong academic reputation and social opportunities.

Agostino Abbatiello graduated from a prestigious Catholic all-boys’ school on Long Island, New York. During high school, he listed himself as a “life coach” – the type who lived by the school’s moral code of doing “the right thing at the right time because it is the right thing to do, regardless of who is watching”.

At Penn State, however, his adherence to that motto has come under question.

Abbatiello, 24, was arrested and charged this week, accused of being the ringleader of a drug-dealing enterprise involving 13 current and former students, many of them members of local fraternities – all-male organisations on many US college campuses. In the US, some fraternities are notorious for putting prospective members through elaborate ritual initiations, known as hazing, that can sometimes turn deadly.

But rather than put young college students through drinking challenges, prosecutors say, the alleged drug ring architects forced some to process and package cocaine.

A lawyer for Abbatiello, who turned himself in to Pennsylvania police, did not respond to a request for comment from the BBC.

Penn State University expressed its horror at the allegations against its current and former students.

“Criminal activity, including hazing, such as this has no place at our institution, and we will co-operate with law enforcement in any way we can,” Andrea Dowhower, vice-president for student affairs, said in a statement.

In some ways, the scheme as prosecutors have described it is reminiscent of a Hollywood movie script – sprawling and sophisticated, yet the handiwork of youths just a few years out of high school.

They allege the suspects utilised apps like Snapchat and Venmo, and usernames tied to their actual names ultimately helped get them caught.

They allegedly enlisted fraternity brothers and made some prospective fraternity members cut and package the cocaine. One of the ringleaders, when officers stormed his fraternity house, allegedly thought he was being pranked – until the police used a stun gun on him as they uncovered a haul of drugs and a weapon.

“There was nothing junior or childlike about this type of conduct,” Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday said when announcing the charges. “This was an upper-level trafficking organisation for this region in Pennsylvania.”