NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — A 48-year-old New Jersey man was sentenced to nine years in prison Wednesday for acting as the ringleader of a major dark web drug trafficking scheme, District Attorney Alvin Bragg said.
The Middlesex man, Chester Anderson, along with co-conspirators, operated storefronts on the dark web that sold and shipped hundreds of thousands of Xanax tablets and other controlled substances across the county. They also laundered more than $2 million in cryptocurrency, officials said.
“Chester Anderson profited by operating in the shadows of the dark web to sell illicit drugs,” said Bragg. “Our office will continue to utilize our unparalleled cybercrime expertise and investigative skills to hold accountable those who think they can use cryptocurrency to facilitate dangerous illegal activity.”
Through his two web storefronts, Chester and his associates laundered about $2.3 million by loading the cryptocurrency payments onto prepaid debit cards and the withdrawing more than $1 million from ATMs in Manhattan and New Jersey, according to court documents.
Investigators made a series of undercover cryptocurrency purchases of more than 10,000 Xanax tablets as well as ketamine and GHB. Officers also searched Anderson and his co-conspirator’s vehicles and properties where they found the largest quantity of pills in New Jersey state history.
The recovery included approximately 600,000 Xanax tablets, about 500 glassines of fentanyl-laced heroin, large quantities of methamphetamine, ketamine, gamma hydroxybutyric acid (GHB), and more, four pill presses and two industrial mixers, among other drug manufacturing items, thousands of dollars’ worth of cryptocurrency, three illegally possessed firearms and 8,000 tablets found by intercepting packages shipped by falsely claiming the sender as a Manhattan business.
Anderson used a shell company called Next Level Research and Development to purchase more than 1,000 kilograms of microcrystalline cellulose which is the main ingredient used to make pharmaceutical tablets. He also used a co-conspirator’s Asbury Park cellphone repair store, The Wireless Spot, to buy a pill press, a powder mixer and “punch dies” which he used to imprint “Xanax” labels.
Earlier this year, Anderson pleaded guilty to conspiracy in the fifth degree, operating as a major trafficker, conspiracy in the fourth degree and money laundering in the first degree. He will also have to serve five years of post-release supervision.
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