Dark Web Dealer For Carfentanil Now Received 11 Years Imprisonment


A Kelowna based dark web dealer for drugs who had operated a pretty sophisticated carfentanil and fentanyl trafficking has been imprisoned. His appeal by the B.C’s highest court had been coherently denied.

The imprisoned dark web dealer was a father aged 38 years bearing the name James Shawn Nelson. The imprisoned had no prior criminal records at the time of his guilty pleading. He has pleaded to two counts of trafficking carfentanil and fentanyl, two potentially detrimental drugs via the Canadian mail. The trafficking took place from July 2016 till August 2017, as the Court of Appeal Documents stated.

The dark web drug dealer had been sentenced to 11 years (132 months) behind bars in July 2020. The Crown had sought a 16 year old sentence. 

The dark web is the virtual place that is equivalent to the black market. The shadowy depths of the internet permits one to buy and sell illegal drugs, weapons and even the human organs. Most people are unaware of the darknet or do not have access to them. This is owing to the fact that the encryption techniques almost make it impossible to locate the users. To access the dark web, a person requires special software known as the Tor Browser.

How The Dark Web Dealer For Drugs Got Caught

The accused dark web dealer had moved to Kelowna in 2012 with his common-law spouse named Cassie Bonthoux. However, the charges against the common-law spouse had been dropped later. 

The couple had owned an urban clothing store on the Pandosy Street in downtown Kelowna called the “Duke And Duchess Apparel”. 

The imprisoned had connected with the customers to purchase his drugs from the alias “Fattuesday_13” on one of the then dark web websites or dark web marketplace, AlphaBay Market. On the Tor network. The court records had indicated that the alias had advertised they were one of the premium vendors of Fentanyl in Western Canada. They had also claimed to have sold their products to several other Tor-based websites as well.

The investigation and what the accused had admitted revealed that he was the one behind the alias “Fattuesday_13”. The appeal documents mentioned this as well. 

On the 31st of August 2016, the now-imprisoned dark web dealer had sold 100 mg of fentanyl from his Fattuesday_13 alias to an undercover officer. The officer had subsequently received an Xpresspost envelope in his mail bearing fictitious shipper’s information and contained a magazine. Inside the magazine was concealed a small plastic bag that contained 0.7 grams of 90% pure fentanyl. 

On the 19th of October 2016, the officer had again bought 100 mg of fentanyl and 25 mg of carfentanil for $105. The website had advertised that the usage of the carfentanil responsibly has been proven to be very safe.

This time as well, the officer had received a similar Xpresspost envelope containing a magazine and in it was 0.045 grams of carfentanil and 0.0394 gms of fentanyl.

In August 2017, the cops had arrested the dark web dealer and searched his car. The investigators could locate six envelopes that were ready to be mailed to the Canadian individuals and people from other parts of the world. The court records state that all the envelopes either contained fentanyl or carfentanil.

Following this, the cops had executed a search warrant at his residence. They found post receipts that were addressed to the stated individuals. Other than this, they could find various documents that were related to the fentanyl manufacture, encryption, ordering and the competitor’s pricing. They had also unearthed a significant amount of Bitcoin (BTC) currency that valued at approx. $83,000 on the date of the accused’s arrest and during the time of sentencing, another $239,000.

The Court Proceedings

At that time, the cops had called the drug operation one of the most sophisticated and significant one ever uncovered in Canada. In the sentencing, the judge had said that the accused’s drug trafficking operation had critically exposed the Canada Post employees along with his young son to the detriment. The potency and the purity of both the carfentanil and fentanyl had increased the lethal likelihood. 

The judge had also considered that the devastation caused by the opioid epidemic running for five years has contributed to Columbian deaths due to fentanyl overdoses. The drug overdose deaths during March 2020 to May 2020 are more than that caused by Covid-19.

In April, a hearing was held at the BC Court of Appeal where the accused had argued that he should have received a greater number of prison sentences as he is a first-time offender. He had also claimed that the sentencing the judge had considered as unproven evidence. The case was typically unfit in the perspective of the case law. However, the justice panel trio had disagreed.

“The appellant presented himself to his community as a law abiding, responsible and respectable citizen and father, whose common-law wife, the co-accused, operated a small business in downtown Kelowna,” Justice Patrice Abrioux wrote in his decision.

“And yet, that veneer of respectability obscured a man who had a long-standing operation trafficking in substances that he knew could be lethal to his clients.”

Source: MSN

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