Virginia Man Sentenced for Conspiracy to Distribute Meth on the Darknet
ALEXANDRIA, Va. – A Fairfax, Virginia man was sentenced today to 52 months for conspiring to distribute between 15 and 45 kilograms of pills containing methamphetamine via the darknet.
According to court documents, from about May 2019 through December 2019, Tyler Pham, 39, conspired to distribute peach tablets advertised as Adderall, but in fact containing methamphetamine, nationwide through the U.S. mail. Pham used the moniker “addy4cheap” on darknet markets, the Empire Market and Cryptonia. Between August 2019 and December 2019, law enforcement agents conducted 20 controlled purchases from “addy4cheap” on both markets for a total of 767 peach tablets received, weighing approximately 268 grams total.
On Dec. 9, 2019, search warrants were executed at Pham and his co-conspirators’ residences, including the homes of Lien Kim Thi Phan, 37, Fairfax, and Hon Lam Luk, 35, Chantilly. In the home of Phan and Pham, agents found 95 peach tablets, and in Luk’s residence, investigators found over 6,000 peach tablets weighing approximately 2.2 kilograms, all of which resembled those advertised on “addy4cheap” and those received by law enforcement through controlled purchases.
As of Dec. 10, 2019, “addy4cheap” had completed 3,665 sales on the Empire Market and received 2,568 reviews. Based on these reviews, “addy4cheap” had received approximately $482,572.10 in sales for an approximate 44,872 pills sold. As of Nov. 7, 2019, “addy4cheap” had fulfilled 140 transactions on Cryptonia.
Pham’s six co-conspirators- Phan and Duong Nguyen, 29, of Springfield; Son Nguyen, 36, of Annandale; Dat Nguyen, 37 of Alexandria; Trieu Hoang, 39, of Springfield; along with Luk, all previously entered guilty pleas in connection with the conspiracy and were sentenced to over 13 years in prison combined.
Jarod Forget, Special Agent in Charge of the DEA Washington Division; Jessica D. Aber, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia; Wayne A. Jacobs, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office Criminal Division; George Scavdis, Special Agent in Charge, FDA Office of Criminal Investigations, Metro Washington Field Office; Tira Hayward, Acting Inspector in Charge of the Washington Division of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service; and Kevin Davis Fairfax County Chief of Police; made the announcement after U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema accepted the plea.
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