URBANA, Ill. (WBBMNEWSRADIO) -- A 24-year-old man from Champaign has been sentenced to prison for trafficking in counterfeit anxiety medication.
Stephan Caamano has been sentenced to 13 years in a federal prison for trafficking at least 4.3 million counterfeit Xanax pills throughout the country and laundering the proceeds.
On April 29, 2019, Caamano, 24, pleaded guilty to using darknet markets and cryptocurrency to to traffic pills containing alprazolam, marked as 'Xanax,' from March 2017 through May 2018. He got the pills from overseas, prosecutors said, and then marked the pills so that they looked as if they were legitimate Xanax pills in his unsanitary garage
Prosecutors said Caamano would ship the pills nationwide in batches of 1,000 pills per package up to one million.
"This defendant made millions of dollars while putting thousands of people at risk from counterfeit medication that was manufactured in his garage," said U.S. Attorney John Milhiser, in a statement. "In addition, this scheme infringed on the 'Xanax' trademark to undercut legal marketing of the drug. Thanks to the diligent work of law enforcement, this dangerous scheme ended and this defendant is behind bars."
Court documents said Caamano went out of his way to avoid being found out by law enforcement. He created a limited liability company to hide his purchase of the house he used as his base of operations. He also used the darknet and cryptocurrency and built "significant security measures into his home computer."
Caamano has been in custody since his arrest in May 2018.
Caamano has been ordered to pay more than $2.1 million he gained in profits through this scheme. He was ordered to serve a term of three years supervised release upon completion of his prison sentence.
