Darknet Vendor of Fentanyl-Laced Pills Pleads Guilty

USPA NEWS - A Tampa, Florida, man pleaded guilty today to distributing fentanyl on the darknet. According to court documents, from August 2021 to February 2022, Akshay Ram Kancharla, 26, ran the darknet moniker OnlyTheFinest on darknet marketsToRRez and Dark0de Reborn. He advertised and sold nationwide pressed Oxycodone containing fentanyl, pressed Xanax, pressed Adderall, and THC resin.

On ToRRez market, Kancharla sold over $73,096 in controlled substances and completed over 264 transactions by December 21, 2021, which included sales of 7,375 pressed Oxycodone pills. On Dark0de Reborn, which Kancharla joined after ToRRez market went down, he sold over $39,793 in controlled substances, which included rated orders for 3,975 pressed Oxycodone pills sold.

The darknet, also called TOR network or darkweb, is a portion of the Internet that hosts darkmarkets, or hidden commercial websites. A darkmarket operates as a black market, selling or brokering transactions involving legal products as well as drugs, weapons, counterfeit currency, stolen credit card details, forged documents, unlicensed pharmaceuticals, steroids, and other illicit goods.

Between October 2021 and February 2022, law enforcement made controlled purchases from OnlyTheFinest, which included 710 pressed Oxycodone pills containing fentanyl shipped to the Eastern District of Virginia. On February 17, 2022, a search warrant was executed at the defendant’s residence. Therein, agents found marijuana as well as a large quantity of pressed Oxycodone pills weighing approximately 2.38 kilograms resembling those obtained through controlled purchases that tested positive for fentanyl and pressed Xanax bars weighing approximately 437.5 grams. Law enforcement also seized $30,140 in U.S. currency and agents observed the defendant’s cryptocurrency Ethereum wallet on his laptop that contain approximately 2.444 in Bitcoin.

Kancharla is scheduled to be sentenced on August 4. He faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. Actual sentences for federal crimes are typically less than the maximum penalties. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after taking into account the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

Jessica D. Aber, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, and Wayne A. Jacobs, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Washington Field Office, made the announcement after U.S. District Judge Michael S. Nachmanoff accepted the plea.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Bibeane Metsch is prosecuting the case.

This investigation was conducted by the FBI Washington Field Office’s Hi-Tech Opioid Task Force, which is composed of FBI agents and task force partners, including special agents and officers of the Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Criminal Investigations, DEA, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and detectives from local assisting police agencies. The task force is charged with identifying and investigating the most egregious Dark Web marketplaces, and the vendors operating on the marketplaces who are engaged in the illegal acquisition and distribution of controlled substances, to include fentanyl, methamphetamine, and other opioids.

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Wendy writes for the United States Press Agency and is a former columnist with the Fulton County Expositor, Wauseon, Ohio.

Source: Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Virginia press release May 26, 2022