A 40-year-old Briton, Banmeet Singh, was on Friday, April 19, sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to forfeit $150 million by a U.S. District Court in Columbus, Ohio.
Judge Algenon Marbley sentenced Singh to credit for time served, as he had been in custody for one week shy of five years while his case was pending.
US federal prosecutors said Singh, of Indian descent, created vendor marketing sites on dark web marketplaces, such as Silk Road, Alpha Bay, Hansa, and others, to sell controlled substances, including fentanyl, LSD, ecstasy, Xanax, ketamine, and tramadol.
Customers paid with cryptocurrency for drugs ordered from Singh using the vendor sites, which he then personally shipped or arranged the shipment of the drugs from Europe to the United States through U.S. mail or other shipping services.
The US Department of Justice said, “From at least mid-2012 through July 2017, Singh controlled at least eight distribution cells within the United States, including cells located in Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Maryland, New York, North Dakota, and Washington, among other locations.
“Individuals in these distribution cells received drug shipments and then re-packaged and re-shipped the drugs to locations in all 50 states, Canada, England, Ireland, Jamaica, Scotland, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
“Over the course of the conspiracy, the Singh drug organization moved hundreds of kilograms of controlled substances throughout the United States and established a multimillion-dollar drug enterprise that laundered millions of dollars of drug proceeds into cryptocurrency accounts, which ultimately became worth approximately $150 million.”
The convict was arrested in April 2019 in London at the request of the United States and subsequently extradited to the United States in March 2023.
He pleaded guilty on Jan. 26 to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute controlled substances and conspiracy to commit money laundering.