A Kelowna man convicted of running an international drug ring online was denied appeal by the BC Supreme Court.
James Nelson was sentenced to 11 years in prison in July 2020 for trading fentanyl and carfentanil on the internet – a part of the internet that most users cannot access without the use of specialized software. The dark web is home to virtual black markets selling drugs and other illegal materials.
Nelson initially faced eight separate substance abuse charges along with his common law partner, Cassie Bonthoux.
In a unanimously overturned appeal against the ruling, Nelson argued to a three-judge BC Court of Appeal Panel that seven years’ imprisonment would have been more appropriate in the absence of a previous conviction.
The court ruled that the judge had adequately weighted Nelson’s first-time offender status and opted for a five-year sentence less than the 16 years proposed by the Crown.
Nelson – using the username Fattuesday_13 – knowingly sold potentially lethal drugs on AlphaBay, a dark web marketplace, between July 2016 and August 2017. He advertised his operation as “one of the premium fentanyl suppliers in Western Canada”.
The police investigation into two separate purchases of his product tied Nelson to the username Fattuesday_13. Nelson later admitted his use of the username.
Search warrants carried out in Nelson’s home and Bonthoux’s Kelowna store after her arrest in August 2017 revealed a variety of pieces of evidence, including envelopes containing medicine that can be mailed to various international locations.
Police seized 102.91 grams of carfentanil, 97 Canada Post shipping receipts, and more than 19 bitcoins valued at more than $ 83,000 – now valued at nearly $ 240,000 – from Nelson’s home. In Bonthoux’s store, the police also found and confiscated transaction records and other materials related to Nelson’s drug trafficking.
“The appellate leader presented himself to his community as a law-abiding, responsible, and respectable citizen and father whose wife, the co-defendant, ran a small business in downtown Kelowna,” wrote Judge Patrice Abrioux in the court’s decision.
Abrioux said Nelson’s “veneer of integrity” on display was covering up a man who was dealing in substances he knew could be fatal while he was aware of the deadly opioid epidemic in BC, caused in part by the same drugs that he was selling.
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