2 leaders of $2.8 million dark web drug trafficking, money laundering conspiracy sentenced to 16 & 18 years in prison

CINCINNATI – Two leaders of a prolific online drug trafficking organization were sentenced in U.S. District Court in Cincinnati to 16 and 18 years in prison.

Khlari Sirotkin, 39, of Colorado, was sentenced on Oct. 11 to 192 months in prison. Sean Deaver, 39, of Nevada, was sentenced in August 2023 to 216 months in prison.

The two men are leaders of five defendants charged in 2020 for using several Dark Web marketplace accounts – including one named Pill Cosby – and encrypted messaging apps to sell illegal drugs online.

The defendants specialized in the manufacturing and distribution of more than one million fentanyl-laced counterfeit pills and laundered approximately $2.8 million from 2013 until 2020. The pressed fentanyl pills, along with heroin, methamphetamine and cocaine, were shipped to the Southern District of Ohio and throughout the country. Co-conspirators also disguised fentanyl as authentic, pharmaceutical opioids.

The investigation was coordinated out of the Cincinnati Field Office of the FBI and is part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) joint investigation conducted by the Southern Ohio Digitized Organized Crime Group. The investigation was significantly aided by the Department of Justice’s multi-agency Special Operations Division (SOD).

Kenneth L. Parker, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, J. William Rivers, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Cincinnati Division; Orville O. Greene, Special Agent in Charge, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA); Charles L. Grinstead, Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Food and Drug Administration – Office of Criminal Investigations (FDA-OCI), Kansas City Field Office; Lesley C. Allison, Inspector in Charge, United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS); Angie Salazar, Special Agent in Charge, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI); Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost; Cincinnati Police Chief Teresa Theetge; and the Ohio National Guard Counterdrug Task Force announced the sentences imposed by U.S. District Judge Douglas R. Cole. Criminal Chief Karl P. Kadon is representing the United States in this case.

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