Drug kingpin agrees to surrender most crypto ever seized by U.S. law enforcement
An international drug kingpin given the same designation as the infamous “El Chapo” admitted in federal court Friday in Columbus his alleged crimes and agreed to surrender the most cryptocurrency ever seized by U.S. law enforcement.
Banmeet Singh, 40, will forfeit as part of a plea agreement accounts valued at more than $327 million as of 1 p.m. Thursday. The price of cryptocurrencies fluctuates frequently throughout each day.
Singh admitted in court Friday to running an interna- tional drug ring from his U.K. home that distributed heroin, cocaine, fentanyl, ecstasy, LSD, ketamine, Xanax and other drugs to at least eight places in the United States, including Columbus. The ring operated from at least 2012 through 2017.
Kenneth Parker, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, said Friday the cryptocurrency was val- ued at $150 million when it was seized, believed to be the largest cryptocurrency finan- cial seizure in DEA history.
The U.S. Attorney Gen- eral designated Singh a pri- ority target for the Orga- nized Crime Drug Enforce- ment Task Force in 2019. The DEA had also designated Singh as a consolidated pri- ority organization target, or CPOT, which Special Agent in Charge Orville Greene said is the designation for “leaders of the most prolific drug laundering that have the most impact on drug traf- ficking.” The CPOT title has been given to other notori- ous drug traffickers like Joa- quin “El Chapo” Guzman.
Singh, an Indian national living in the United Kingdom until his 2019 arrest, also agreed to a jointly recom- mended eight-year prison term when he appeared
before U.S. District Court Judge Algenon Marbley on Friday morning. He will for- mally be sentenced at a later date.
Parker said Singh began his drug operation on the traditional Internet before transitioning to the dark web.
Singh has at least seven co-conspirators, Parker said, including two who have been convicted in the Southern District of Ohio. Others are facing charges in New York, North Carolina, North Dakota and Maryland.
U.S. District Court records show Singh and his attorneys signed the plea agreement on Jan. 5, and it was unsealed Thursday ahead of Friday morning’s hearing. As part of the plea, Singh pleaded guilty to one count each of conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to distribute and possess with the intent to distribute con- trolled substances.
Federal prosecutors and Singh’s attorneys agreed to a jointly recommended sen- tence of 96 months, or eight years, in federal prison.
Parker said it was unable to be determined in the inves
tigation whether the drugs Singh sent to Columbus, where he had at least two co-conspirators who would resell the drugs locally, led to any fatal overdoses. Had it been able to be proven, it would have required Singh to spend at least 20 years in federal prison, Parker said.
Singh also admitted to using the dark web and cryp- tocurrency to organize and run an international drug trafficking operation with cells in Columbus, Maryland, New York, Florida, North Dakota and other places in the United States.
According to the indict- ment, the drug trafficking rings sold heroin, cocaine, fentanyl, LSD, Ketamine, MDMA, Xanax and other narcotics. Customers would send cryptocurrency, usu- ally bitcoin, to Singh from dark web accounts to ven- dor accounts set up by Singh, the indictment said.
Singh would then ship or arrange shipment of the drugs from Europe to the United States to a group of “reshippers” who would receive the drugs through the mail, repackage the drugs
and send them to locations specified by Singh, including Jamaica, Canada, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Scotland, England and Ireland, according to court records.
“It’s a myth that drugs coming from international waters have to touch somewhere on the borderline,” Parker said. “When you impact the Southern District of Ohio, we’re going to go where we need to.”
In 2017, before his indictment, Drug Enforcement Administration officials had seized 59 kilograms of ecstasy, sometimes known as MDMA or Molly, and 19 kilograms of ketamine from what is believed to be a distribution cell of Singh’s.
Singh was indicted in 2018 on charges of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, conspiracy to import controlled substances and money laundering conspiracy.
Singh did not arrive in the United States until March 2023 because of his multiyear effort to fight his extradition to the Columbus area, which he eventually withdrew in early 2023.