A man pleaded guilty to the possession and selling of Carfentanil- a Schedule II Substance; he allegedly acquired from a dark web marketplace. According to the police, the man was arrested and charged after an investigation to a teen’s overdose case pointed them in his direction. Carfentanil can be considered to be the most dangerous fentanyl analog, as it is used to tranquilize animals such as elephants and its lethal quantity in humans is not known.

According to a police statement investigation against Gage S. Lankas, which began in August 2017 following the overdose and admission into the hospital of a 17-year-old teen from Grain Valley. After recovering, the teen explained to the police how he crushed and snorted pills he believed to be oxycodone. The teen told the police that all he could remember was that he passed out after snorting the powder and woke up in an ambulance where he passed out again. The passing out surprised the teen as it had never happened to him before as he was a frequent user of oxycodone.

The teen’s surprise was proved right when lab tests indicated that the pills he had used and others recovered from his home were Carfentanil and not oxycodone. According to a Drug Enforcement Authority (DEA) press release, Carfentanil is 100 times more potent than fentanyl, and as such, even the slightest overdose can easily lead to death. According to the release, Carfentanil is usually sold as either heroin or oxycodone, which makes it “crazily dangerous” to its unknowing users.

On learning that the teen’s overdose had been caused by Carfentanil, the authorities decided to engage the teen to know from whom he had purchased the pills. The teen was presented with some photos by the cops from which he picked Lankas. He then told the police that he bought the pills he thought were oxycodone from Lankas after meeting him in Westport.

The teen’s testimony did not result in Lankas’s arrest as the police sort to closely look into Lankas activities. After some days, the police responded to a domestic disturbance in a Midtown apartment where they found Lankas and his girlfriend engaged in a quarrel. Lankas’s actions made the police search his apartment where they found pills similar to the ones seized from the teen who had overdosed and identified Lankas as his dealer. The police also found $6,583 hidden in a safe.

Lab tests on the pills seized from Lankas proved that they contained Carfentanil, showing the teen had not identified Lankas wrongly. When questioned, Lankas disclosed that he had acquired the pills via a dark web marketplace whose name the authorities failed to disclose. Apart from the teen’s overdose case, the cops did not link Lankas’s Carfentanil distribution operation to any fatal overdoses.

On pleading guilty to the possession of Carfentanil with the intent to charge Lankas, who is still in police custody and could spend a maximum of 20 years in prison followed by supervision for the rest of his life. Lankas remains in custody unsure of his future since his sentencing date was not decided when he entered the guilty plea.