A dark web vendor living in Georgia has pleaded guilty to distributing a variety of prescription drugs through the dark web using the username “Pillpusher.”
The defendant Cullen Roberts, 23 , of Duluth, Georgia, pleaded guilty. He used an account with the username “Pillpusher” on the defunct Yellow Brick Market to sell prescription drugs to users all around the United States. According to prosecutors he sold drugs through the account as early as April 2020.
Pillpusher profile
Yellow Brick Market is a dark web market that vanished and returned many times but finally disappeared completly in late 2020 or early 2021.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) started investigating him in July 2020, the investigation resulted in the identification and arrest of Roberts. An FBI agent placed an order with Pillpusher for ten oxymorphone pills on August 5, 2020.
The FBI agent then provided the shipping address to a Postal Inspector at a Post Office located in Cumming, Georgia. The FBI believed that Roberts used the Cumming Post Office to ship drugs in the past. When they were conducting physical surveillance at the Post Office on August 6, the inspector saw a young man who dropped off a Priority Mail package. The package he dropped was addressed to the address the FBI agent gave to Pillpusher.
Several months after the FBI had placed the order, they received the order they placed with Pillpusher at an address they controlled. The package delivered contained ten pills which tested positive for oxymorphone. At the time of the surveillance, Postal Inspectors had not recorded Roberts at the Post Office.
Authorities installed surveillance cameras and recorded Roberts as he dropped off packages. On August 14, 2020, the surveillance cameras captured a man dropping off a package at the post office, the man matched the appearance of the person first spotted by the Postal Inspector on August 6. The cameras also captured the suspect’s license plate.
Searching DMV records showed that the license plate and the vehicle were registered to Roberts. Throughout the course of investigation, undercover FBI agents purchased different types of prescription drugs from Pillpusher on Yellow Brick Marketplace. The cameras the agents installed at the Post Office repeatedly captured Roberts dropping off the packages. In most cases, the packages were addressed to FBI controlled addresses.
The FBI also conducted surveillance at Roberts’ residence. On October 19, 2020, investigators collected garbage left outside of Roberts’ residence. The agents searched the trash and they recovered empty boxes of oxycodone and Xanax pills. As they were conducting surveillance on October 22, the investigators followed Roberts to the Post Office where he dropped off multiple packages.
The postal inspector recovered eight packages addressed to multiple locations accross the U.S. Seven of the packages recovered were Priority Mail Express packages and the last oone was a Priority Mail package.
The investigators allowed Priority Mail Express packages to be delivered but they seized the Priority Mail one. They opened the package after acquiring a search warrant. They found 60 grams of an undisclosed number of white pills in a sealed plastic bag the pills tested positive for tramadol.
Investigators purchased and received a total of 34 Adderall pills, 50 oxymorphone pills, 100 oxycodone pills, and 10 Xanax pills from Pillpusher during their investigation.
Roberts was arrested on December 2, 2020. After his arrest he was charged with the distribution of controlled substances. He pleaded guilty to the charges on August 3, 2021. He has not been sentenced.