‘OPERATION FIREWOOD’

Nebraska Pharmacist Charged With Plotting to Firebomb Local Competitor

The 41-year-old owner of Hyrum’s Family Value Pharmacy also allegedly sold thousands of pills on the dark web.

A Nebraska pharmacist has been charged with allegedly plotting to firebomb and destroy a competitor’s pharmacy with Molotov cocktails, federal prosecutors said Friday. Hyrum Wilson, 41, was charged with conspiracy to use fire and explosives, conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, and a firearms-related offense. He also allegedly sold thousands of pills on the dark web with a co-conspirator, William Anderson Burgamy, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office Eastern District of Virginia. After Wilson was arrested for selling the pills from his business, Hyrum’s Family Value Pharmacy, prosecutors discovered the alleged firebombing plot. 

Wilson and Burgamy plotted for five months to firebomb and “destroy Wilson’s local competition” in Auburn, Nebraska, prosecutors say. Both men agreed the plot, named “Operation Firewood,” would involve using Molotov cocktails “enhanced with Styrofoam as a thickening agent” to burn down the pharmacy—before Burgamy would use various firearms to complete the job. “The goal of the plot was to destroy Wilson’s local competition, which Wilson and Burgamy allegedly believed would increase the volume of prescription drugs that Wilson’s business could obtain, thereby allowing Wilson and Burgamy’s drug trafficking operation to continue and expand,” prosecutors said, noting that both men were struggling to keep up with the increasing demand of their illicit dark web activities.