Dark Web Drug Dealer and Opioid-Peddling Pharmacist Get 23 Years for Plot to Firebomb Rival Operation: DOJ
‘OPERATION FIREWOOD’
U.S. Justice Department
A Dark Web drug dealer and a pharmacist were sentenced to 23 years in jail for a plot to burn down a rival pharmacy with Molotov cocktails, the Justice Department announced Friday. William Burgamy IV, a 33-year-old “Darknet vendor” of illegal prescription medications, and Hyrum Wilson, a 41-year-old pharmacist, had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to use explosives, money laundering, and conspiracy to distribute controlled substances. Wilson also pleaded guilty to firearms conspiracy. The two were arrested in April 2020 for a plan they dubbed “Operation Firewood.” Wilson, who worked at a pharmacy in Nebraska, often maxed out the doses of drugs he could procure and then mail to Burgamy, prosecutors said. From August 2019 to April 2020, he sent more than 19,000 doses of prescription medications, including opioids, to Burgamy, who then sold them on the Dark Web via a site dubbed NeverPressedRx. They claimed to have brought in nearly a million dollars before their arrest. To fuel the expansion of their operation, Wilson and Burgamy devised a plan to firebomb a rival pharmacy with Molotovs and steal its cache of drugs. Burgamy was sentenced to 14 years in prison, and Wilson to nine.