Dream Market Vendor Convicted After Navy Sailors Overdose

In October 2017, two sonar technicians stationed at Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay in Georgia died approximately four days apart at a shared residence in Kingsland. Ty Bell and Brian Jerrell had ordered synthetic opioids from a dark web vendor called "Canada1" on Dream Market. The packages arrived from Canada bearing the logo of a fake tourism company. Both sailors consumed the contents and died from fentanyl overdoses.

The investigation that followed would span two countries, involve more than a dozen agencies, and take over eight years to produce a conviction.

On January 30, 2026, a jury in the Southern District of Georgia found Paul Anthony Nicholls guilty on two counts: Conspiracy to Import Controlled Substances Resulting in Death, and Conspiracy to Distribute Controlled Substances Resulting in Death. The 47-year-old British national faces a mandatory minimum of 20 years in federal prison, with a maximum sentence of life. There's no parole in the federal system.

Nicholls ran the "Canada1" vendor account on Dream Market, the longest-running darknet marketplace that operated from late 2013 until its shutdown in April 2019. The operation advertised synthetic opioids including U-47700 a compound 7.5 times more potent than morphine that the DEA emergency-scheduled in 2016 after linking it to at least 46 deaths and methoxyacetyl fentanyl, another analogue that would later be placed into Schedule I in October 2017.

The vendor claimed it could ship anywhere in the world from Vancouver, British Columbia. That claim turned out to be accurate.

Investigators traced the packages back to their origin through Canadian postmarks and a peculiar detail: they all bore the logo of "East Van ECO Tours," a shell company that existed only to make drug shipments look like tourist souvenirs. After weeks of surveillance, law enforcement intercepted more than 40 packages with that logo. Every single one contained fentanyl analogues some in powder form, others as nasal sprays.

The investigation revealed that Nicholls worked with at least one co-conspirator: Thomas Michael Federuik, 59, of West Vancouver. According to court documents, the pair imported precursor drugs from China and Hungary, then processed and distributed them through the Dark Web using business names including "East Van ECO Tours" and "Bridge City Consulting LLP."

In March 2018, RCMP investigators arrested both men at a West Vancouver address and seized approximately 1.7 kilograms of fentanyl with a street value estimated at $30 million. Search warrants at the residences and vehicles of both men turned up more. Expert testimony at trial valued the total fentanyl analogues recovered at $24 million, a quantity sufficient to kill more than 375,000 people.

Investigators also recovered receipts and tracking information for thousands of packages shipped worldwide. Among those receipts: two packages delivered to Kingsland, Georgia in October 2017. One mailed September 27, delivered October 11. Another mailed October 6, delivered October 13. Bell and Jerrell would be dead within days of receiving them.

The case required an unusual coalition of agencies. The FDA Office of Criminal Investigations, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Canada Post, Canadian Border Services Agency, Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Kingsland Police Department, Surrey Police Department, Health Canada, and Pasco County Sheriff's Office all contributed. The sheer number of agencies involved reflects the complexity of tracing dark web transactions across international borders.

The timing of Dream Market's operation made it particularly dangerous. After Operation Bayonet shut down AlphaBay and Hansa in July 2017, traffic flooded to Dream Market, making it the dominant marketplace. By the time Dream announced its shutdown in March 2019 coinciding with Operation SaboTor, a coordinated crackdown that produced 61 arrests the platform had reportedly hosted 57,000 active listings.

Federuik's case took a different path. After a U.S. federal court issued a warrant for his arrest in 2019, Canadian authorities apprehended him in May 2022. But his lawyers successfully challenged the extradition process: the U.S. missed the 60-day deadline to submit formal paperwork by two days. In February 2024, a BC Supreme Court justice rejected the extradition request, ruling that extending the deadline would violate Charter rights.

The U.S. appealed. In September 2025, the BC Court of Appeal overturned that ruling, finding that discretionary time-extension powers are "routine" in legal statutes. The extradition proceedings continue.

U.S. Attorney Meg Heap's statement following the conviction: "Two U.S. Navy sailors lost their lives because of Nicholls' distribution of lethal drugs. My office will continue to aggressively prosecute those who bring harm to our communities."

Kings Bay hosts the Atlantic Fleet's Ohio-Class ballistic missile submarines vessels capable of carrying Trident nuclear weapons. The sailors who died served on some of the most sensitive military assets the United States operates. They were sonar technicians, the people who listen for threats underwater.

They ordered drugs from a vendor who promised worldwide shipping, and they got exactly what they paid for.

Nicholls awaits sentencing before Judge Lisa Godbey Wood in Brunswick, Georgia. The sentencing date has not yet been scheduled. An indictment for Federuik remains active in the Southern District of Georgia, though he has not yet been tried. Under U.S. law, he remains presumed innocent.

The "Canada1" vendor page on Dream Market went dark when the marketplace shut down in 2019. The fake tourism company stopped shipping packages. But the receipts survived, and so did the tracking numbers. Eight years later, they connected a British national in Vancouver to two dead sailors in Georgia.