A Brooklyn couple accused of running an online drug marketplace called Astro Ape now faces federal charges in Cleveland, after undercover agents say they bought methamphetamine, cocaine and thousands of counterfeit Adderall pills laced with meth from the operation over the past several months. Matthew Nunez and Nicole LaSalle, both 30, are charged with conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine in federal court in Cleveland, and prosecutors say the pair controlled access to a marketplace that shipped narcotics across the country under a cartoon astronaut ape logo.
According to Cleveland.com, Drug Enforcement Administration agents in Cleveland began investigating the Astro Ape network in January and spent six months building the case before shutting the operation down. Nunez and LaSalle allegedly launched Astro Ape in April 2025 on the encrypted messaging apps Potato and Signal, connecting drug dealers with customers through a chatroom called Banana Base. Prospective buyers reportedly had to submit photos of drugs and cash before they were allowed to use the marketplace, a vetting step investigators say Nunez and LaSalle required to control who could access the network.
Federal investigators say undercover DEA agents paid about $2,500 for methamphetamine and counterfeit Adderall pills through the site, and later bought 1,025 counterfeit Adderall pills containing methamphetamine and more than a pound of methamphetamine outright. Separately, Homeland Security Investigations agents paid $30,000 for cocaine from Astro Ape and bought four pounds of the drug. In March, Franklin County Sheriff’s deputies and Homeland Security Investigations agents reportedly watched an Astro Ape shipment containing about four pounds of cocaine get delivered.
Tracing the Money and the Packages
Investigators say Nunez and LaSalle received drug payments through the mail and via Bitcoin, and that agents tracked those Bitcoin transactions back to the couple. That approach mirrors how federal investigators in other darknet drug cases build evidence, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, which has documented how agents use blockchain analysis to trace cryptocurrency payments from online drug storefronts to real identities. In that same June 2025 case, four East Coast co-conspirators were sentenced to federal prison for running darknet vendor accounts that manufactured and mailed counterfeit Adderall pills containing methamphetamine to customers nationwide via the U.S. Postal Service…