IOPList.Org

Members of multimillion-dollar
opioid drug ring sentenced


BY LINDSAY WHITEHURST ASSOCIATED PRESS
JULY 17, 2021 03:49 PM




This undated booking photo provided by the Tooele County Sheriff's Office
shows Drew Crandall. The final legal chapter of a multimillion-dollar online
opioid drug ring ended Friday, July 16, 2021, as a group of millennials who
helped run the dark-web operation based in suburban Salt Lake City were
sentenced to prison. Crandall helped start the operation that eventually grew
to shipping tens of thousands of fake pills laced with the deadly opioid fentanyl
to people nationwide in 2016. He cried as he grappled with his role in the
operation that prosecutors have linked to multiple overdose deaths.
(Tooele County Sheriff's Office via AP, File) AP




SALT LAKE CITY

The final legal chapter of a multimillion-dollar online opioid drug ring ended Friday as a
group of millennials who helped run the dark-web operation based in suburban Salt Lake City
were sentenced to prison.

Drew Crandall helped start the operation that eventually grew to shipping tens of thousands
of fake pills laced with the deadly opioid fentanyl to people nationwide in 2016. He cried as
he grappled with his role in the operation that prosecutors have linked to multiple overdose deaths.

“I just want to say that I’m so sorry for everything I have done,” said Crandall, now 35.
“So many people were affected by it. I need to pay my debt to society, and I need to take
responsibility for my actions."

He pleaded guilty to drug distribution and money laundering charges and was sentenced to
4 1/2 years in federal prison.

The punishment for him and other defendants was far too light for Tova Keblish of New York,
whose son died after buying from the dark-web storefront called Pharma-Master. Her son
Gavin was 23 and bought counterfeit oxycodone after having surgery.

“It makes me sick. It’s unfair,” she said. The defendants are “young enough they can get out
and have a life.”

Crandall has testified that the operation started small, when he needed cash for student loans,
so he let his roommate Aaron Shamo sell his prescription Adderall. Crandall said he scaled
back his role before Shamo began selling fentanyl.

Authorities say the 2016 bust at Shamo’s suburban Salt Lake City home ranked among the
largest in the country at the time. More than $1 million was found in his dresser, according
to court documents.

Crandall agreed to a plea deal and testified against Shamo, who was convicted of 12 counts
and sentenced to life in prison.

Also sentenced this week were two women who packaged the drugs and at one point put together
shipments so large they vacuumed pills off their floor. They each got three years in prison,
while a “runner” hired to pick up dozens of packages a day and drop them in the mail was
sentenced to two years. A gym friend of Shamo’s who helped press pills got five years.

Prosecutor Vernon Stejskal said the sentences handed down by U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball
sent the message that anyone involved in a drug ring could face “severe consequences.”

Still, the outcome is tough to accept for mothers like Shaela Knighton of Salt Lake City, whose son
was a grocery store dairy manager helping raise a 2-year-old when he died after buying
Pharma-Master pills.

“He had a good future,” she said.
“A family who loved him.”




Drew Crandall, 35, is shown at the Federal Courthouse Friday, July 16, 2021, in Salt Lake City,
after being sentenced to 54 months in federal prison for his role in an online drug ring that
shipped tens of thousands of fake pills all over the U.S. He shed tears and said he was deeply
remorseful for his role. The final legal chapter of a multimillion-dollar online opioid drug ring
ended Friday as a group of millennials who helped run the dark-web operation based in suburban
Salt Lake City were sentenced to prison.
(AP Photo/Lindsay Whitehurst) LINDSAY WHITEHURST AP