Second ‘Drug Llama’ sentenced for selling more than 50,000 fentanyl pills
A second online drug trafficker known as “The Drug Llama” was sentenced to 13 years in federal prison for selling fentanyl through the “dark web.”
Melissa Scanlan, a 32-year-old from San Diego, partnered with another person from San Diego, 34-year-old Brandon Arias, to sell the highly addictive and deadly drug throughout the United States, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Arias was sentenced to nine years in federal prison in November.
Scanlan sold roughly 52,000 fentanyl pills from October 2016 to August 2018 through a dark web marketplace called the “Dream Market.” The dark web is often where criminal activity occurs on the internet because traditional search engines can’t access it.
Over the duration of their scheme, Scanlan and Arias made more than $100,000, which they split evenly. At least one of the sales they made caused a death from fentanyl overdose, according to charging documents.
The case was investigated with the assistance of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Criminal Investigations, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Illinois.
This story was originally published February 11, 2020 at 5:07 PM.
