A Houston man has been handed a lengthy prison sentence for his role in running an operation to manufacture and sell “Adderall pills” containing methamphetamine to unsuspecting customers on the dark web.
Marco Juarez, 37, pleaded guilty to charges related to the situation in June of 2023. This week, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison followed by five years of supervised release.
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Key figures and their roles in the operation
Juarez was among a group of conspirators in this drug distribution case, and he was the last to be sentenced. Alexander Fernandez, 33, was considered to be the leader of the operation, and he was sentenced to 20 years behind bars. Christopher Houser, 36, was sentenced to three years in prison, and Alexis Sandoval, 26, was handed a 10-year sentence.
U.S. District Judge Gray Miller said that the men were handed harsh sentences in part because they sold pills that were advertised as Adderall, when they in fact contained meth.
Each man had a specific role in the operation: Fernandez was behind the logistics of the ring, Juarez supplied the meth that was used in the pills, Houser pressed and produced the pills, and Sandoval packaged and distributed the pills ordered on the dark web through the mail.
How authorities uncovered the operation
Authorities became suspicious of Fernandez in 2020, when they discovered that he was ordering tools used in pill manufacturing, including a pill press machine, pill stamps, dyes, and bulking agents. Investigators soon learned that the ring was making pills in local homes, including a residence in Houston Heights and two other homes in Fulshear.
A search warrant was executed in October of 2020. It revealed around seven kilograms of “ice-style” methamphetamine and four kilograms of meth in the form of powder and fraudulent pills. If that wasn’t incriminating enough, nearly five additional kilograms of pills were found at a second residence, where they were ready to be packaged and mailed to buyers.
U.S. Attorney’s Warning: Counterfeit pills can kill
Along with the “Adderall” tablets, the group was also selling fake “Xanax” tablets that instead contained Etizolam, a drug classified in the U.S. as a research chemical.
“These conspirators manufactured and distributed large quantities of fake Adderall pills that actually contained meth in order to make money at the expense of the health and safety of others,” U.S. Attorney Alamdar S. Hamdani said in a press release detailing the sentencing. “The public must be aware that while counterfeit pills may look like legitimate prescription drugs, they may actually contain a deadly controlled substance. Instead of ingesting quality-controlled products of a heavily regulated prescription drug industry, users of counterfeit drugs may be putting powerful crystal meth into their bodies, which leads to increased addiction rates and health risks.”