A DC government employee was caught selling drugs, sometimes right outside of his office building.
The FBI raided a Washington, D.C. government office last week and discovered a cache of the deadly opioid fentanyl. The drugs allegedly belonged to Darrell Marcellus Pope, who worked at—and sold drugs from—the D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs.
Pope was arrested and charged with selling fentanyl. He and his wife, who also worked in the office, are currently on leave.
Inside The Operation
The scheme was discovered by undercover agents who reportedly caught Pope selling fentanyl, claiming they observed him selling the stuff just outside his office, often just a few feet away from an elementary school.
The scope of Pope’s operation spanned Woodbridge, Virginia, Clinton, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. Drivers in the scheme would drive clients from Virginia to D.C. for the express purpose of making an illicit purchase.
According to DCist, Undercover agents then set up a sting operation during which Pope allegedly sold agents fentanyl and/or heroin nine times over the course of a month.
According to court documents, Pope sold his wares at $100 a gram and carried a handgun to at least one sale.
The FBI allegedly confiscated “at least one ounce” of the suspected fentanyl from Pope’s home, an “additional quantity of suspected fentanyl” in his workspace, and 30 more grams on his person. Pope’s co-workers knew about the FBI raid, according to a spokesperson, but the fentanyl was definitely a surprise.
A government employee working at the heart of our nation isn’t the only surprising fentanyl dealer in recent news.
Ex-Eagle Scout Turned Fentanyl Kingpin
Aaron Shamo, a 29-year-old former Eagle Scout in Salt Lake City, Utah, faces a mandatory life sentence for his involvement in a multimillion-dollar opioid scheme. His operation created hundreds of thousands of counterfeit oxycodone pills laced with fentanyl.
Shamo started on this dark path when he met his co-conspirator, Drew Crandall, who worked with him at an eBay call center. The pair formulated a scheme to sell their Adderall prescriptions on the dark web before eventually using those profits to purchase and sell harder drugs, including cocaine and MDMA.
They got their network of friends to receive drug shipments at their addresses.
Not long after, the pair got into the business of pressing their own pills, first starting with fake Xanax made of the anti-anxiety drug alprazolam, then moving on to their deadly fentanyl products. According to ABC News, the two would sell thousands of pills a week at $10 a pop.
Their business faltered as people became sick or died from taking their pills. Their operation came to an end when a customs agent intercepted a shipment of fentanyl destined for Shamo’s operation.
