Winsted man’s federal drug case reveals dark web of CT fentanyl sales
A Connecticut man’s recent guilty plea in a federal drug case offers a glimpse into a lucrative black market for homemade fentanyl pills based on the dark web.
Colby John Kopp, 23, pleaded guilty Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va. to his role in a conspiracy to sell the powerful opioid nationwide from a base in northwestern Connecticut. Kopp, a Winsted resident, faces at least five years in prison when he’s sentenced on April 18.
The veil dropped on the operation in August 2020 when the FBI discovered a dark web vendor called MadHatterPharma. The account had been set up in May 2020 and the vendor already had completed at least 554 sales, hawking the quality of the pills on the underground website, according to an FBI affidavit.
“PRODUCT IS STRONG!” the seller warned customers, the affidavit stated. “START WITH HALF A PILL AND MOVE UP FROM THERE!”
Using a Torrington address as a base, Kopp and his co-conspirators pressed and packaged tablets made to look like the painkiller Percocet, charging as much as $10 for each pill, according to the FBI. From April 2020 through January 2021, Kopp ordered at least 9 kilograms of baby blue Firmapress tableting mix along with a pill press and punches used to stamp the tablets, the FBI said. He and his crew mailed the drugs from post offices in the area, using fake return addresses, authorities said.
On Aug. 14, 2020, an undercover agent ordered 10 pills, which were advertised as “M/30 Oyxcodone Percocet 30MG,” for $100. MadHatterPharma provided an address where the buyer could pay in Bitcoin cryptocurrency. The agent provided a Virginia shipping address and deposited the payment, the affidavit said.
Received several days later, the Priority Mail package contained multiple envelopes with a silver pouch at the center holding 10 blue pills, which tested positive for fentanyl, the FBI said. Investigators found the package was mailed from the post office in the Riverton section of Barkhamsted along with 12 other parcels sent the same day and marked with the same bogus return address.
Investigators traced the Bitcoin address provided by MadHatterPharma to Kopp, the FBI said. He had used Coinbase, a company that provides a platform to buy, sell and store cryptocurrency. As part of Coinbase’s
“Know your customer” protocol, Kopp was required to submit a photo of himself, and agents matched that picture with his Connecticut driver’s license, the affidavit stated.
Kopp transferred Bitcoin payments to a PayPal account and also to a co-conspirator, Adriana Beatrice Sutton, who withdrew the payments in U.S. currency from a Coin Cloud ATM in Newington, according to the FBI. From May 2020 to January 2021, Kopp transferred about $140,000 in Bitcoin to Sutton’s Coinbase account and she withdrew $122,000 in cash during that period, the FBI said. Sutton pleaded guilty to distribution of fentanyl and was sentenced in October to one year and one day in prison, according to federal authorities.
Meanwhile, MadHatterPharma continued to tout its product on the dark web.
“We are an experienced group of professionals that have been in the game for years,” the “about” page on the vendor profile stated. “We specialize in bulk shipping . ... We look forward to working with you all, let’s get (expletive) rich!”
The undercover agent kept buying pills from Kopp until getting no response to an order for 100 tablets for $910 placed on Dec. 8, 2020, the affidavit stated. In all, the FBI purchased about 75.4 grams of fentanyl from Kopp and his crew, the affidavit stated.
In addition to the electronic trail, Kopp’s fingerprints were found on a package received by the FBI on Sept. 10, 2020, the affidavit said. Investigators concluded that he and his crew, including two unindicted co-conspirators, distributed at least 400 grams of fentanyl, authorities said.