Feds charge businessman with selling painkillers on Silk Road
Federal prosecutors in Orlando say the chief technology officer of a Texas company was illegally selling painkillers on the Silk Road website and was among the top vendors on the now-defunct drug marketplace. Matthew Verran Jones, who works for Data Paradigm Inc. in Dallas, has been charged with illegally distributing a controlled substance on Silk Road as well as outside the website. Federal authorities shut down Silk Road last year and charged its 29-year-old founder with building a drug empire that had an estimated $1.2 billion in sales. But before Silk Road was brought down, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents in Orlando bought painkillers, sedatives and other drugs from multiple sellers on the website. According to a recently unsealed criminal complaint filed in Orlando, Jones, 44, opened a Silk Road account in April 2013 and used the alias "CALIGIRL." Since then, CALIGIRL made 685 sales. The profile was among the top 5 percent of all Silk Road vendors, the complaint said. DEA agents said they made two undercover buys from CALIGIRL's Silk Road account and six other undercover purchases from CALIGIRL outside the website using an encrypted program, the complaint said. Authorities have bought or seized more than 1,300 oxycodone and hydrocodone pills from Jones, authorities said. Agents also learned Jones frequently traveled to Colombia, where he bought the oxycodone he later sold online. Jones was arrested Thursday in Broward County, where he remained jailed Friday. The case is the latest local DEA investigation into Silk Road. Last fall, Orlando federal prosecutors filed charges against Delaware physician Olivia Bolles, alleging she sold hundreds of prescription drugs illegally on Silk Road and shipped them to Central Florida. Agents found more than 600 sales between Bolles' "MDPro" account and Silk Road users, records filed in her case said.
Timmins Police reveal "enormous" meth bust
http://www.timminstimes.com/2014/05/21/timmins-police-reveal-enormous-meth-bust
Somebody brought hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of ICE brand methamphetamines to the city, but Timmins Police Service has put the freeze on their business. Police revealed Wednesday morning they had made "an enormous bust" of "meth" tablets with a street value of approximately $200,000. Police said Joel Gaudreault, 35, and Hassie-Lee Sutherland, 29, both of Timmins, are charged with possession for the purpose of trafficking, illegal possession of a Schedule II substance and possession of property obtained by crime. They will appear in court in June. TPS communications coordinator Kate Cantin told reporters that police executed two search warrants on Tuesday May 13th and seized a quantity of drugs and cash. The first search warrant at one Timmins home resulted in the seizure of a small amount of pills, hashish oil and items of drug paraphernalia, she said. "The second search warrant executed at a different residence, led to the seizure of approximately twenty-thousand ICE brand methamphetamine tablets, which is equivalent to 10 kilograms," said Cantin. She said police also seized packaging material, more drug paraphernalia and a small amount of cash. As for the ICE brand meth tablets, TPS drug unit supervisor Sergeant Darren Dinel, said each tablet it stamped with the word. He said this lets the drug user know what they're getting and he said the brand can be used for marketing among drug users. "This is an investigation we've been involved with for approximately a month," said Dinel. "A lot of good police work went into this investigation. A lot of time and effort by the investigators and this was the fruits of their labour." Dinel also said Timmins Police has had much success in recent months in getting drugs off the street. When asked about the scale of this latest bust, he said it was significant. "The scale of this one, it's 10 kilograms of methamphetamine tablets; it is an enormous bust," said Dinel. He said the meth tablets are regarded as the same type of "hardcore" street drug as cocaine or heroine. Dinel said that methamphetamines in these quantities have only been on the scene in Timmins in the past couple of years and this bust is the biggest yet, in terms of street value and the quantity. The Timmins Times asked "Is this material made locally or imported from another community?' "I am not going to get into that aspect of the investigation," said Dinel. "I won's speak anymore on that." Dinel said setting up a facility to produce methamphetamine tablets is not that easy. "It is definitely difficult. There's a lot of chemicals that go into producing a drug like this," Dinel. "It does take a lot of work. You have to have somebody who is educated and is able to produce something like this, which is a synthetic drug," said Dinel. He said another issue is the disposal of the dangerous chemicals associated with producing the drug. Aside from the fact that meth is an illegal substance, Dinel said it was also a dangerous substance. "You really don't know what the potency of the drug is going to be," said Dinel. He said that producing the drug illegally can result in higher dosages of certain chemicals increasing the chance of addiction, or even death by overdose.
Funny they can take these people down easy but not the actual threat that are cartels and other organized crime elements.