DOJ: Los Angeles man found guilty in Utah of selling narcotics on dark web
A federal jury in Salt Lake City found two foreign nationals – one of whom is a Los Angeles resident – guilty of running a “multi-year, multi-million dollar” scheme that shipped narcotics to buyers across America via the dark web.
According to the United States Department of Justice, 54-year-old Oluwole Adegboruwa of Las Vegas and 49-year-old L.A. resident Enrique Isong used the United States Postal Service and interstate commerce to commit their crimes, which made them more than $8 million in criminal proceeds.
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The men began selling drugs in October 2016, and by May 2019, Adegboruwa had sold more than 300,000 oxycodone pills to customers on several different dark web marketplaces, including Hansa, Dream Market, Wall Street Market and Alphabay; all have since been dismantled by law enforcement, the justice department said.
Customers paid Adegboruwa with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum for the drugs, which he later sold for traditional currency. He was convicted under what is commonly referred to as the “kingpin statute” for organizing a continuing criminal enterprise and directing at least five others in the drug distribution conspiracy.
“At trial, the jury also heard testimony from co-defendants who have already pleaded guilty…they described the ways in which Adegboruwa directed them to sort, package and ship oxycodone pills to minimize damage and detection,” the DOJ said in a statement. “Adegboruwa testified at trial and admitted that he was the only one who had access to his vendor pages on the dark web markets to process orders from customers.”
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The jury also heard from a Utah customer who discussed the process of ordering from the dark web vendor’s pages and how the products arrived, officials added.
Two days after the guilty verdict was returned against Adegboruwa and Isong, the jury also returned a special verdict form requiring the former to forfeit $380,395.64 in cash, $15,000 in lieu of a 2017 Dodge Charger and 26 money orders totaling $9,400.
Adegboruwa was also ordered to forfeit $15 million worth of cryptocurrency, the DOJ said.
Both men are scheduled to be sentenced in August.
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