COLUMBUS – A resident of India has pleaded guilty to running an international narcotics ring that distributed illegal drugs in Columbus and elsewhere, eventually amassing a cryptocurrency fortune worth approximately $150 million.
Federal prosecutors say Banmeet Singh, of Haldwani, India, operated a dark web narcotics conspiracy that built a multi-million-dollar drug enterprise and Friday’s plea resulted in the largest single cryptocurrency and cash seizure in DEA history.
Singh, 40, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess with the intent to distribute controlled substances and conspiracy to commit money laundering and forfeited cryptocurrency accounts that ultimately became worth $150 million, according to a release from the office of Kenneth Parker, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio.
Court documents say, between 2012 and 2017, Singh sold fentanyl, LSD, ecstasy, Xanax, Ketamine, Tramadol and other drugs through vendor marketing sites on dark web marketplaces like Silk Road 1, Silk Road 2, Alpha Bay and Hansa and shipped them from Europe to eight distributors in Columbus and six other states.
The distributors re-packaged and re-shipped the drugs to locations in all 50 states, as well as Canada, England, Ireland, Jamaica, Scotland and the U.S. Virgin Islands, Parker said.
“In the Singh organization’s drug orders, the members frequently used the vendor name ‘Liston’ and signed off with the signature phrase, ‘I’m still dancing.’ Today, with Banmeet Singh’s plea of guilty, the dance is over,” Parker said.
Customers who ordered hundreds of kilograms and tens of thousands of pills paid with cryptocurrency, authorities said.
“Banmeet Singh is designated as a Consolidated Priority Target, which makes him one of the most significant drug trafficking threats in the world,” DEA Special Agent in Charge Orville Greene said. “His criminal enterprise has caused untold suffering to perhaps tens of thousands of people throughout the country.”
Singh was arrested in London in April 2019 and his extradition to the U.S. was secured last year.
He is one of eight defendants who were members of this drug trafficking organization who have been convicted of drug trafficking charges in the U.S., Parker said.
Law enforcement leaders, including Columbus police chief Elaine Bryant, Franklin County Sheriff Dallas Baldwin and members of the Ohio Narcotics Intelligence Center were on hand for the announcement.
Parker acknowledged the assistance of numerous federal agencies and those from the United Kingdom.