Dark web vendor pleads guilty to distributing fentanyl through the mail

Date: Aug. 28, 2024

Contact: [email protected]

Defendant sold more than $1 million of drugs and fraudulent documents

Earlier today, in federal court in Brooklyn, Ryan Scott Cochran, also known as "namedeclined," pleaded guilty to distributing fentanyl, cocaine and methamphetamine through the United States mail. Today's proceeding was held before United States District Judge Ramon E. Reyes, Jr. As part of his guilty plea, Cochran agreed to forfeit more than $200,000 in cash, cryptocurrency and money in bank accounts already seized by law enforcement and agreed to forfeit an additional $900,000 at a later date. When sentenced, the defendant faces a maximum sentence of twenty years' imprisonment.

Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, announced the guilty plea.

Mr. Peace expressed his appreciation to IRS Criminal Investigation (CI), Oakland Field Office; United States Postal Inspection Service, New York Field Office and San Francisco Field Office; and the Drug Enforcement Administration, San Francisco Field Office, for their assistance on the case.

According to court documents and facts presented at the guilty plea proceeding, Cochran was a highly rated vendor on numerous dark web marketplaces for more than a decade. Cochran advertised and sold fentanyl, cocaine and methamphetamine, among other drugs, and shipped them throughout the United States and around the world through the United States mail. Cochran also sold fraudulent identification documents and other forged documents, such as health insurance cards, on the dark web.

Assistant United States Attorney Philip Pilmar is in charge of the prosecution with assistance from Paralegal Specialists Thomas Englert and Rachel Friedman.

CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a more than a 90 percent federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 12 attaché posts abroad.