A man from Orange County and a man from Houston, Texas have been sentenced to federal prison for using the dark web to sell fentanyl-laced pills that caused several fatal overdoses.
Michael Ta, 25, of Westminster, and Rajiv Srinivasan, 37, of Houston, received long prison sentences on Monday.
From at least February 2022 to November 2022, Ta and Srinivasan conducted more than 3,800 online drug deals, selling illegal narcotics to approximately 1,400 people in all 50 states, according to the United States Department of Justice.
Srinivasan operated an account called “redlightlabs,” which he used on multiple marketplaces hosted on the dark web — a hidden portion of the internet accessible only through specialized software.
The two used that account to advertise counterfeit M30 oxycodone pills that were spliced with fentanyl and other drugs.
