How Much Money Moved Through The Penn State Frat Cocaine Ring? Here’s What We Know So Far…

Every headline-grabbing narcotics crime saga eventually reaches the part where somebody opens the ledger.

For the alleged Penn State fraternity cocaine ring that resulted in 14 arrests back in August, the hearing took place on September 2 at the Centre County Courthouse in Bellefonte. Former Delta Upsilon brother Thomas Robinson, whom CBS Pittsburgh described as “a rung below” alleged ringleader Agostino Abbatiello, was the first cooperating co-defendant to take the stand at Abbatiello’s hearing. Robinson himself faces felony charges of corrupt organizations, conspiracy, dealing in proceeds of unlawful activity, and related offenses.

This saga has been a beast to follow. The media coverage arrives in bits and pieces. It relies on the reader to piece things together from collective memory and earlier coverage: A courtroom quote lands at one outlet, then a dollar figure at another. Often, there’s no context connecting the two, a byproduct of how media works these days.

So I’ve been lining up the news coverage, court testimony, and grand jury presentment to build a clearer picture of what *allegedly* went down, for BroBible readers and for my own understanding. I’m a Penn State alum, so I’m wildly fascinated by the whole ordeal.

If you need a refresher on the cast and the criminal complaint, check out my earlier explainer on the Penn State cocaine ring. It’s a doozy, including how it worked with Penn State’s Sigma Chi chapter on the supply side, Delta Upsilon on the demand side, a lawyer dad who was indicted, a gun, a buried safe, and a younger brother on a boat.

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Robinson walked the court through his purchases one by one, and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Fox News documented the accounts in the courtroom. He included dates, weights, and prices in his testimony to expose the secret business of the alleged cocaine crime ring.

This breakdown focuses strictly on the money. Specifically, from testimony about the Penn State cocaine trafficking ring after Robinson’s first court hearing earlier this month.

The most complete accounting so far comes from Megan Swift at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on September 12. Swift’s reporting on Robinson’s testimony revealed ten purchases from Abbatiello between August 2023 and November 2024. Robinson said this totaled about 4.64 kilograms of cocaine worth roughly $143,000.

That total has only been reported by the Trib in my research, and it comes from a cooperating co-defendant’s accounting of his own alleged purchases.

As always: no one in this case has been convicted, and everyone named is presumed innocent until proven guilty in court.

Breaking down the money

Here are Robinson’s ten purchases, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, with a rough per-gram price I calculated for each. Ounces are converted at about 28.35 grams.

Much of this is backed up by reporting from other media outlets.

The Daily Collegian, which had a reporter in the courtroom, reported that Robinson testified his first purchase was 100 grams, made alongside fellow Delta Upsilon brother Mohammed Huraibi, and that his buys eventually reached 1,000 grams for $22,000. Asked by prosecutors whether the amounts he bought correlated with cocaine demand from Penn State students, Robinson said yes.

Meanwhile, the Centre Daily Times, as relayed by the Philadelphia Inquirer, put the total count at roughly 10 purchases that grew in size and price over time.

The kilos are the best-corroborated line items from the initial hearing. Fox News reported that Robinson testified to buying about a kilogram in July 2024, another in September, and a third in November. That particular November buy is worth flagging, because the Pennsylvania grand jury presentment charges a November 2024 delivery without actually describing the nature of the transaction. Robinson’s testimony adds detail to a count that was otherwise a blank space in the paperwork.

Penn State’s student station CommRadio separately reported a February 2024 purchase of 250 grams for $15,000.

These deals have digital breadcrumbs. Robinson testified, per Fox News, that he bought directly from Abbatiello over Snapchat, where messages vanish after 24 hours. For the February 2024 buy, Local 21 News reported that Abbatiello came out and sat in Robinson’s car. In that meeting, cash was swapped for a shoebox of cocaine. According to IBTimes UK, the March half-kilo was allegedly paid for with a combination of cash and Venmo.

The Markup

Now here’s the napkin math. You’ll have to excuse me if I’m off here; I was an English education major, not an econ major, during my undergrad years in Happy Valley.

Robinson testified that the cocaine was resold in small baggies of about a half-gram each for roughly $80, a figure the Inquirer also reported, noting the product was typically ground down before being rebagged. Lars Zeepvat, a Sigma Chi brother and co-defendant, put the range wider, at $60 to $120 a bag, according to the New York Post, so treat $80 as a midpoint instead of a fixed rate. Per the Trib, a State College police informant said in fall 2024 that the going rate for bulk buyers was $1,200 an ounce or $2,200 for two.

If you put those next to the buy prices, you can start to see the ring’s price ladder:

• Kilo price: about $22 a gram
• Ounce resale: about $39 to $42 a gram
• Half-gram bag: about $160 a gram

At the top rung, this is roughly a sevenfold markup. A single $22,000 kilo would make roughly 2,000 half-gram bags, which at $80 apiece comes to $160,000.

If you scale that math to the full 4.64 kilograms Robinson noted during his testimony, you get a very wide range. If this were sold entirely by the ounce, the haul would bring in around $196,000.

If sold entirely in $80 bags, it would gross about $742,000.

The true amount, whatever it is, seems to be somewhere in that very wide range.

The Trib notes that authorities haven’t said how much was resold versus what the brothers used for personal consumption.

Robinson testified that he used some himself, though he called the amount “insignificant to the amount sold.” Robinson also testified to selling 4 to 8 ounces at a time to other fraternities, which would pull the total toward the bulk end. AG Dave Sunday has said pledges cut and bagged the product, according to his office’s press release announcing the charges. Depending on how the cocaine was cut, this bag count could have stretched even further.

For what it’s worth, the prosecution thinks this number is big. The Inquirer reports that Senior Deputy Attorney General Megan McGoron said Abbatiello was making hundreds of thousands of dollars. Zeepvat testified that Abbatiello spent his earnings on new clothes and a $5,000 bong, and gambled up to $10,000 at a time, according to the New York Post.

One curiosity sits at the very bottom of the ladder. Zeepvat also testified, per the Trib, that Abbatiello told him he was paying his Long Island source $28 to $35 a gram. Robinson’s kilos came in at $22 a gram, according to Robinson’s own testimony.

Zeepvat was describing smaller 50 to 100 gram buys, so bulk pricing from the source could easily explain the gap. Still, on the numbers reported so far, the alleged kingpin was selling his biggest orders for less per gram than he once said he paid.

This is where the numbers get wobbly

Robinson’s testimony is the most detailed accounting we have so far, but it doesn’t line up neatly with the grand jury presentment or, in one case, with itself as reported by different outlets.

The March half-kilo has three prices.

The Trib reports $18,000, which matches the grand jury presentment. When the charges were announced in August, CBS Pittsburgh reported that the presentment details Robinson buying 500 grams for $18,000 and a kilogram for $22,000. IBTimes UK has a March half-kilo costing $20,000, which also matches what Zeepvat recalled in the presentment. Meanwhile, Fox News reports Robinson testified that a March 2024 deal involved about 500 grams for roughly $22,000. Penn State’s CommRadio has the same figure.

If the $22,000 version is right, the math gets a little strange. Robinson would have paid $22,000 for 500 grams in March and $22,000 for twice that in July, which works out to $44 a gram one month and $22 a gram the next. Every other deal on the list moves in the opposite direction, with the price per gram falling as the orders got bigger.

November 2023 costs either $7,500 or $15,000.

The presentment describes the second buy as about 250 grams for about $7,500, split evenly between Robinson and his early partner and fraternity brother, Huraibi. Robinson’s testimony, per the Trib, puts it at $15,000. The two may be reconcilable if $7,500 was each man’s share of a $15,000 purchase.

But if the total was $15,000, the math gets fuzzy again. By my count, 250 grams at $15,000 works out to about $60 a gram, above the $40-per-gram rate they paid for their first 100 grams. That’s a volume discount in reverse, and the same $60 rate appears in the January and February 2024 buys.

Confused yet? Yeah. Me too.

January and February 2024 weigh slightly different amounts.

The presentment lists each as 6 to 8 ounces, about 170 to 227 grams. Robinson’s testimony puts each at 250 grams. That’s a small gap by the standards of this story, but it’s there.

Huraibi leaves at two different times.

The presentment says Huraibi told Robinson he was done in December 2023 and was bought out. The Trib, however, reports Robinson testified on September 2 that the two pooled their money on the first five purchases, which runs through January 2024. He allegedly began dealing directly with Abbatiello in February. IBTimes UK also has Huraibi stepping back in February 2024, after which Robinson dealt with Abbatiello directly.

Robinson’s start date shifts, too. CBS Pittsburgh’s hearing coverage reports he testified that he began selling cocaine in spring 2023. The presentment has Huraibi pitching him on the partnership in July 2023, and the Trib dates their first buy from Abbatiello to August.

The grand total is up for debate

So far, none of the news organizations or testimonies seem to agree on the grand total of the alleged criminal ring. The Trib’s reported $143,000 and 4.64 kilograms is the most detailed accounting so far, and its line items add up to the total. IBTimes UK’s headline puts the deals at about $120,000, and its story says the purchases added up to roughly 5.6 pounds, or about 2.5 kilograms. Even the low estimate is more than five pounds of cocaine, which is not a small amount to be arguing about.

As Onward State reported, the presentment says Abbatiello received more than $123,500 in drug payments. That’s framed as a minimum, so it doesn’t strictly conflict with anything else reported. Still, Robinson’s testimony alone, as reported by the Trib, exceeds the presentment’s figure for Abbatiello’s total drug income by about $20,000. This is before counting any of Abbatiello’s other alleged customers.

Consider the source

Right now, all of this math rests heavily on one man’s memory in court testimony. More details will likely emerge as testimony from others continues.

Robinson, who thought his initial arrest was a fraternity prank before being tased by State College police, is a cooperating defendant who named Abbatiello as his supplier after his December 2024 arrest, and he’s now testifying against him. Under cross-examination by Abbatiello’s attorney, Philip Masorti, Robinson admitted using cocaine, molly, Adderall, and marijuana during that stretch, and acknowledged that his drug use could have affected his memory, as reported by Penn State CommRadio.

That doesn’t necessarily make the ballpark numbers wrong. Several match the grand jury’s findings exactly, and one was pinned down by a photo on Robinson’s own phone. It does mean the figures above are best read as the prosecution’s star witness’s best recollection, filtered through reporters taking notes in a courtroom.

What Comes Next

Several defendants waived their preliminary hearings. The remaining defendants, per the Trib, are scheduled for preliminary hearings on October 14. This will likely bring more testimony and more numbers.

Formal arraignments for several key defendants are also expected later this month, including Thomas Robinson on September 30 at the Centre County Courthouse.

I’ll update here at BroBible as we learn more.

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Note from Brandon: As a Penn State grad from a long line of Penn State grads, I’m following this one closely. If you have something worth sharing, email me anonymously at brandon@brobible.com.