Inside a Charleston Frat's Multimillion-Dollar Xanax Ring

Inside a Charleston Frat's Multimillion-Dollar Xanax Ring

From Gone South by Audacy Podcasts

June 3, 2026 · 28 min · Season 5 · Episode 17

About this episode

The episode explores a multimillion-dollar Xanax ring tied to a Charleston fraternity and its implications on college culture.

In 2016, nine men tied to the College of Charleston's Kappa Alpha fraternity were arrested in what police initially described as a 40,000-pill Xanax bust. The real number was closer to three and a half million, along with cocaine, LSD, weed, luxury watches, a fleet of cars, and a grenade launcher. The crew had spent years pressing counterfeit pills in rented beach houses and shipping them across the country in Skittles bags, fueling an unregulated drug economy that ran straight through one of the most beautiful college campuses in America. Jed talks with journalist Max Marshall, author of the book "Among the Bros," about how he embedded himself in this world, his hundreds of hours of late-night phone calls with an imprisoned ringleader, and what the case reveals about American fraternities and the lives of the men inside them.  Max Marshall's book is "Among the Bros: A Fraternity Crime Story"  https://shorturl.at/ynPGO Subscribe to our newsletter:  ⁠ https://jedlipinski.substack.com/⁠   Connect with Jed Lipinski: ⁠ https://www.instagram.com/gonesouthpodcast/⁠ https://www.facebook.com/groups/gonesouthpodcast/⁠ ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/jed-lipinski/

People in this episode

Host: Jed Lipinski

Guest: Max Marshall

Topics covered

  • fraternity crime
  • drug trafficking
  • college culture
  • counterfeit drugs
  • American fraternities

Keywords

  • Xanax
  • fraternity
  • drug bust
  • Charleston
  • Max Marshall
  • counterfeit pills
  • college campus
  • drug economy

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Kappa Alpha, College of Charleston

Books & works: Among the Bros, Among the Bros: A Fraternity Crime Story

More episodes of Gone South

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Gone South podcast page.