Raleigh man who made, sold Xanax on 'dark web' headed to federal prison

A Raleigh man who admitted to making and selling Xanax pills on encrypted websites was sentenced Friday to 61/2 years in federal prison.

Posted 9:27 p.m. Jun 1, 2018 — Updated 9:27 p.m. Jun 1, 2018

Matthew Burns

, WRAL.com senior producer/politics editor

RALEIGH, N.C. — A Raleigh man who admitted to making and selling Xanax pills on encrypted websites was sentenced Friday to 6½ years in federal prison.

Matthew Lee Yensan, 25, of 8709 Hidden View Court, pleaded guilty in January to possession with the intent to distribute a quantity of alprazolam, (the generic name for Xanax), distribution of a quantity of alprazolam by means of the internet, possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, conspiracy to conceal transactions with a financial institution with drug proceeds over $10,000 and international money laundering.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration received a tip last July that Yensan was mass producing Xanax at a storage unit on Gorman Street and sold the drugs on the "dark web," encrypted sites that are generally known for facilitating illegal activity such as child pornography and human trafficking.

In a search of Yensan's house, DEA agents found marijuana, prescription drugs, $269,000 in cash in a locked safe, several loaded handguns and a rifle hidden in what authorities described as "defensive positions" throughout the house, bitcoin storage cards and other items used to trade in the virtual currency and a fake South Carolina driver's license that was used to rent the Gorman Street storage unit, according to a search warrant.

At the storage unit, authorities seized about 80,000 dosage units of Xanax and the ingredients needed to manufacture another 300,000 dosage units, authorities said. Agents also found a computer with the browser opened to a dark web site, pill presses, an electronic pill counter and other items associated with illegal drug manufacturing and distribution, they said.

Authorities determined that Yensan had sent $1,200 in U.S. currency to the Postal Savings Bank of China in Yongkang, China, to purchase the pill presses and Xanax molds, which they characterized as international money laundering.

They also used computer forensic tools to discover that Yensan had nearly $1.5 million in virtual currency.

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