Dark-web drug dealer in Southern California gets 10 years in federal prison
A 41-year-old man from Glendale is the eighth person convicted by a federal jury for participation in a darknet drug dealing operation selling methamphetamine and MDMA both in the United States and internationally, authorities announced earlier this month.
In a news release, prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Central District of California Office say that from at least April 2019 to May 2020, Arbi Setaghaian Sangbarani was a member of a dark web drug trafficking organization known as NoLove that mailed meth and MDMA, commonly known as ecstasy, to customers who ordered them on the internet in exchange for virtual currency.
The illicit narcotics, according to authorities, were stored and packaged at a residential home in the Sunland-Tujunga area of Los Angeles.
Nearly 50 pounds of methamphetamine and more than 6,700 MDMA pills were discovered and seized by law enforcement from a shed on the property in February 2020.
In addition to storing, packing and mailing the drugs to customers, the 41-year-old was also tasked with laundering some of the proceeds of the illegal narcotic sales.
“One of Sangbarani’s accomplices collected bitcoin as proceeds from the sale of drugs on the dark web,” prosecutors said. “That co-conspirator then transferred a portion of those virtual currency proceeds to Sangbarani. Sangbarani exchanged the bitcoin into U.S. dollars, transferred the dollars to his bank account, and withdrew the proceeds as cash.”
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This case also marked the first time the federal government in the Central District of California has introduced evidence involving cryptocurrency for tracing darknet markets in a jury trial.
United States District Judge André Birotte Jr. sentenced Sangbarani to 10 years in federal prison after a jury found him guilty of one count of conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine and MDMA, two counts of money laundering and a count of money laundering conspiracy.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations and the United States Postal Inspection Service investigated the case.
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