John Marsh 
Updated July 18th, 2019
In one of the cases that highlight the magnitude of the painkiller addiction problem across the United States, a nurse from Sacramento County was indicted last week by a federal grand jury after prosecutors reported that she sold over 20,000 opioid prescription pills, including lethal fentanyl, via the dark web.
A 42 year old nurse, Carrie Markis, allegedly bought legitimate prescription drugs from willing vendors, and then resold them via her darknet vendor shop, Farmacy41.
US prosecutors reported that Makris collaborated with a 52 year old middle-woman from Elk Grove, Andrea Jordan, who purchased the opioid prescription drugs from local vendors and provided them secretly to Markis. After being indicted, Jordan was arrested last Thursday.
According to the investigations, in addition to her vendor shop, Markis also offered her drugs for sale on multiple Tor marketplaces during the period between 2013 and 2016, including Silk Road 2.0, AlphaBay, and Pandora. On each of her accounts on those platforms, Markis earned between $74,000 and $230,000 in bitcoins from selling thousands of prescription opioid pills.
According to law enforcement reports, searching Markis’s residence in January resulted in the seizure of around $1.8 million worth of bitcoin and $234,000 of cash. If convicted, Markis is expected to face a 20 year imprisonment sentence and a fine of $1 million.
The case came as part of an inter-state federal investigation that probed illicit drug trafficking over darknet marketplaces and private vendor shops. The investigation represented collaborative efforts of the FBI, the US attorney’s office, the Drug Enforcement Administration, Homeland Security Investigations, and the US Postal Inspection Service.
To date, this joint operation has successfully led to 14 arrests, as well as the obtainment of four indictments, as reported by Sacramento’s federal prosecutors. Furthermore, they reported last week that they had also proposed charges against three suspects from Chandler, Arizona, accused of selling methamphetamine and heroin over the dark web.
In a statement made recently by McGregor Scott, a US Attorney, he emphasized that anyone choosing to conduct illegal transactions over the dark web, should realize that they will have federal law enforcement agencies on their tail from every state and district across the country. He claimed that the darknet does not offer full obfuscation, anonymity, or safety.
It is still unclear who is in charge of representing Markis. A comment request from the office of the Sacramento’s federal public defender was not promptly returned.
Donald J. Trump intends to end the opioid epidemic:
The past few months have witnessed a rise in the number of successful darknet drug operations, after Donald J. Trump’s decision to dedicate his first ever public service campaign to fighting the drug epidemic across the United States in August 2018. 2 million Americans reportedly suffered from addiction of illicit prescription opioids in 2018. The campaign is focused on combating drug trafficking via Tor marketplaces which have greatly contributed to the spread of opioid addiction among American youth. More specifically, darknet marketplaces, or cryptomarkets, have facilitated the spread of fentanyl addiction, an extremely lethal opioid, during the past few years. Even though prescription fentanyl is occasionally used for various medical purposes, illicit fentanyl abuse is presently considered the leading cause of overdose deaths across the United States. Many US fentanyl darknet vendors were busted during the past few months. Nevertheless, most fentanyl crossing the American borders is manufactured in China, then shipped or mailed to US customers who pay for it via bitcoin on Tor marketplaces.
Last August, a joint operation by the Department of Justice, the DEA, the FBI, and the US Postal Inspection Service, named “Operation Darkness Falls”, resulted in the arrest of a couple from San Antonio, Holly and Matthew Roberts, who operated darknet marketplaces that facilitated the trafficking of fentanyl and other illicit drugs. Media reports described the couple as “the most prolific darknet fentanyl vendors” who self-taught themselves how to run their online drug trafficking business, masquerading it as a website for selling glow bracelets. Eventually, they pleaded guilty for conspiring to distribute illicit drugs and other crimes.
With the fall of several big Tor marketplaces during the past couple of years, the US is tightening the noose around darknet illicit drug vendors, and with the recent decision of Dream Market to shut down its trading platform, there are currently very few active marketplaces, if any.
