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A North Carolina man was sentenced to 240 months behind bars on Wednesday for selling fake Oxycontin and Xanax pills over the darknet. Dylan Hunter Holcomb, 28, is the latest darknet vendor to receive a stiff sentence for their role in contributing to America’s ongoing opioid crisis by selling home-pressed pills laced with fentanyl and labeled as a different drug.
According to a press release by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), the US Postal Inspector intercepted several suspicious packages in January 2020 originating from Holcomb’s hometown area. The DEA then managed to identify Holcomb’s Washington, North Carolina address as the source two months later, arresting him at home, where they quickly discovered his pill-making enterprise.
Pill press and mugshot of Dylan Holcomb. Source: Beaufort County Sherriff’s Office
Among the items seized from Holcomb’s home upon his March 2020 arrest were “several bags of fentanyl; over 1,500 counterfeit pills containing fentanyl; a 3D printed firearm and silencer; a high-capacity pill press; several electronics used to access the dark web; and multiple cryptocurrency hardware wallets.”
While most of the confiscated pills were to be sold as fake Oxycontin, 418 were meant to be fake Xanax pills, though the principally-acting chemical in both formulations was fentanyl. The other ingredients in the pills were only described as “mixing compounds” in a sheriff’s report. Packages to be sent to customers were similarly-wrapped and pills destined to become fake Oxys were colored blue to mimic the real product.
Comments addressing news of Holcomb’s arrest written on a local law enforcement Facebook page.
Holcomb plead guilty to the charges against him in June of last year. During sentencing, Chief Judge Richard E. Myers II made particular mention of the fact that fentanyl is a growing problem across much of America, leading to an increasing number of deaths each year.
