A San Diego woman has been slapped with a federal indictment for conspiring to distribute fentanyl throughout the United States via the dark web, U.S. Attorney Steven D. Weinhoeft announced today.
Melissa Scanlan, 31, also known as "The Drug Llama," faces a mandatory minimum 10-year prison sentence for her alleged role in the fentanyl distribution conspiracy.
The indictment alleges that Scanlan conspired to distribute over 400 grams of misbranded fentanyl pills throughout the United States, using the dark web marketplace to sell the deadly opioid painkiller.
Fentanyl is a highly addictive and oftentimes lethal opioid painkiller that has ravaged communities across the country.
The charges against Scanlan carry a mandatory minimum 10-year prison sentence, and she was arrested in San Diego and made her first court appearance in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California on September 6, 2018.
An indictment is a formal charge against a defendant, and under the law, that charge is merely an accusation and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Scanlan was ordered detained based on risk of flight and danger to the community pending her removal to the Southern District of Illinois to face charges.
The dark web is a part of the internet that is unreachable by traditional search engines and web browsers, with websites on the dark web having complex web addresses generated by a computer algorithm and requiring special software to access.
This case was part of a months-long, coordinated national operation involving the Food and Drug Administration Office of Criminal Investigations (FDA), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the United States Postal Inspection Service, the Department of Homeland Security (HSI), United States Customs and Border Protection (CPB), the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California, and the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Illinois.
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Key Facts
- State: Illinois
- Category: Drug Trafficking|Fraud & Financial Crimes|Violent Crime
- Source: DOJ Press Release â†â€â€
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