United States Drug Enforcement Administration

TUCSON, Ariz. – On Sep. 9, 2026, Special Agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration, Tucson District Office, conducted a multi-state enforcement operation resulting in the arrest of Alastair Mark Sanderson, 39, of Overland Park, Kansas; William Robert Norris, 43, of Westworth Village, Texas; and Michael Christian Packard, 36, of Fort Worth, Texas. Sanderson and Norris are the principal managers of LFA Machines DFW, LLC. Packard is a former long-time employee of LFA. 

Based in Fort Worth, Texas, LFA Machines sells a variety of tableting machines and other products to customers across the United States. Often called pill presses, tableting machines are used to compress powder formulations into pill form, creating pills of uniform size, shape, and weight. LFA Machines sells a line of desktop tablet presses that are low cost and can produce up to 5,000 tablets per hour. The distribution, importation, and exportation of tableting machines is regulated under federal law and encompasses stringent know-your-customer requirements. 

LFA Machines also sells a product called Firmapress. Firmapress is a binding agent added during the manufacturing process that helps ingredients blend smoothly, flow easily as powders, and bind together to form durable pills or tablets. LFA Machines advertises that Firmapress, which is available in multiple colors, enables “entrepreneurs, home users or businesses [to] pick out an active ingredient, add Firmapress and have a pharmaceutical grade tablet from day one.” These qualities make LFA’s products ideal for use in clandestine illicit drug labs.

The DEA has identified the proliferation of pill press machines as an emerging threat. Drug traffickers use pill presses to press fentanyl into pills and punches and dies to imprint markings and logos onto those pills, producing pills that look like legitimate prescription medication—like oxycodone, Xanax, and Adderall—when those pills, in fact, contain fentanyl, methamphetamine, and other deadly drugs. In 2025, the DEA seized more than 47 million fentanyl-laced fake pills and nearly 10,000 pounds of fentanyl powder.

Over the course of a multi-year investigation, federal investigators not only recovered LFA’s pill presses and other products from multiple clandestine labs around the United States, but developed evidence showing that Sanderson, Norris, and Packard conspired to and did sell LFA’s products to customers knowing, intending, or having reasonable cause to believe that they would be used to manufacture illicit controlled substances. 

On August 21, a federal grand jury in Tucson returned a six-count indictment against LFA Machines, Sanderson, Norris, and Packard alleging one count of Conspiracy to Unlawfully Manufacture, Distribute, Export, and Import Tableting Machines, Equipment, Chemicals, Products, and Materials; two counts of Unlawfully Distributing Chemicals, Products, and Materials; and three counts of Unlawfully Distributing a Tableting Machine. A conviction for each of these crimes carries a maximum penalty of four years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 for the individual defendants and, for LFA Machines, a fine of up to $500,000 or twice the gross pecuniary gain derived from the offense, whichever is greater.

The DEA’s Tucson District Office and SPEAR group led the investigation.

This investigation and prosecution are part of the Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF) initiative established by Executive Order 14159, Protecting the American People Against Invasion. The HSTF is a whole-of-government partnership dedicated to eliminating criminal cartels, foreign gangs, transnational criminal organizations, and human smuggling and trafficking rings operating in the United States and abroad. Through historic interagency collaboration, the HSTF directs the full might of United States law enforcement towards identifying, investigating, and prosecuting the full spectrum of crimes committed by these organizations, which have long fueled violence and instability within our borders. In performing this work, the HSTF places special emphasis on investigating and prosecuting those engaged in child trafficking or other crimes involving children. The HSTF further utilizes all available tools to prosecute and remove the most violent criminal aliens from the United States.

HSTF Arizona comprises agents and officers from HSI, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Enforcement and Removal Operations (ICE-ERO), U.S. Border Patrol, the FBI, DEA, U.S. Marshals Service, IRS-Criminal Investigation, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, U.S. Secret Service, the Bureau of Land Management, Arizona Department of Public Safety, Tucson Police Department, Pima County Sheriff’s Office, Oro Valley Police Department, Marana Police Department, and Arizona HIDTA. Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael R. Lizano, District of Arizona, Tucson, is handling the prosecution.

An indictment is a formal accusation of criminal conduct. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

CASE NUMBER:            26-CR-04376-TUC-AMM
RELEASE NUMBER:    2026-157_LFA Machines, et al.