A 20-year Federal prison sentence awaits a 37-year-old Spokane man following his arrest for running an illegal pill press.
The Man Was Operating a Chinese-made Machine in the Hillyard area
Hillyard is an area of northeastern Spokane that over the years has seen significant improvement in some ways, the 2.6 square-mile district was once referred to as “dogtown.”
The 37-year-old suspect, Nicholas Adams, was running an illegal drug pill press machine, along with co-conspirator Timothy Maddox, who has already been sentenced.
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Adams ordered a pill press machine from China and began to use it to process Fentanyl into pills. The machine takes raw powder and other materials and presses it into pill form. Adams and Maddox ‘cut’ or filled the pills with Fentanyl and other fillers. Pill presses are not illegal, but the Controlled Substances Act prohibits them for being used to manufacture any illegal substances.
The Suspect Had Enough Fentanyl to Kill Millions
DEA Agents who served warrants on the home in November of 2023 found enough Fentanyl to make over 2 million pills each containing a lethal dose. The US Attorney’s Office said that was enough to kill the entire population of Spokane County four times over.
Besides Fentanyl, Adams and Maddox also processed methamphetamine, along with heroin, cocaine, MDMA, and marijuana, and they had a small ‘armory’ in the home. Agents found modified shotguns, loaded chambered handguns, and AK-type weapons. In Maddox’s home agents found one of Adam’s guns that had a “Glock” switch making the weapon capable of being automatic.
US Attorney’s Office Officials said Adams refused drug treatment, threatened witnesses and took other illegal steps to continue his drug use and trafficking. His drug use and trafficking go back as far as 2012, with previous offenses…