$4m In Fake Xanax – Act 1: Meet Stephan Caamano -

Join me to hear the story of Stephan Caamano, a drug trafficker who made more than $4,000,000 in fake Xanax! This is eCrimeBytes.com Season 3, Episode 7 – $4m In Fake Xanax – Act 1: Meet Stephan Caamano.

Sources:

Transcript:

00:00:10:00 – 00:00:38:53
Keith
What’s up, you crazy bastards. Welcome to another week of eCrimeBytes. This is where I research the court paperwork and roast the criminals so you don’t have to. All right, so this week we have season three, episode seven. This is $4 million. 4 million in fake Xanax. Okay, so if you were with me on the last episode, you’re probably like, my God, what about Trickbot?

00:00:38:55 – 00:01:02:46
Keith
You said you were going to talk about Trickbot. I had every intention of talking about the Trickbot case. I was all I had all the links and everything all ready. I went and pulled the data and it said sealed. And I was like, okay. Well, hopefully it’s just this one document that’s sealed. And I went to the next document, pulled it… sealed, and then it just kept doing that through every single document I tried to pull in this case.

00:01:02:46 – 00:01:19:43
Keith
And I was just so distraught. I felt so bad because I really want to bring you a very technical one. But luckily, at the exact same time, we had a listener that said, Hey, could you look at this case? And I started looking at it and it fit perfectly. So I was like, I’m happy to do this case.

00:01:19:48 – 00:01:35:32
Keith
So I just want to say upfront, if you know of a case like this, I’m going to bring you today, feel free to bounce it my way. Now, that being said, there is a few limitations. If I can’t get to the court paperwork, then I won’t talk about the case.

00:01:35:32 – 00:01:44:42
Keith
So we have to make sure that there’s court paperwork so I can pull it. And that way I can use the first hand source of what’s going on in the case and not rely on news sources.

00:01:44:42 – 00:02:12:28
Keith
I really like to bring you the firsthand knowledge in these cases, and that comes through the court documentation. Now, that being said, if it’s a federal case, a U.S. federal case, the system is really, really simple to pull that court documentation from there. So if you know that it’s a federal case, definitely bring it to my attention because I know of ways I can pull all documentation from there.

00:02:12:29 – 00:02:26:09
Keith
So this particular case was a federal case so I could pull all the documentation and that’s how I’m able to bring you the story today. So with that, I’m just inviting you to submit your cases just like this one, and hopefully I’ll be able to cover it.

00:02:26:09 – 00:02:51:11
Keith
Okay, So with that out of the way, let me go ahead and just get right into this case. So the criminal here, his name is Stephan Caamano c a a m a n o, okay. And the crime we’re going to be talking about, I told you up front is Xanax so it’s counterfeit drug trafficking. And you might immediately say, what does that have to do with electronic crime?

00:02:51:16 – 00:03:14:25
Keith
Well, the technology here Darkweb markets. So this is how he sold his drug. So it’s definitely an electronic crime that we can talk about right. Personally, me, I like looking at these other type of cases that maybe electronic crime isn’t on the forefront because you get to learn much more than about just computers, right? I mean, you get to learn them here.

00:03:14:25 – 00:03:21:21
Keith
You’re going to learn about pill presses and things like that that you might not think you would learn on normal electronic crimes podcast.

00:03:21:21 – 00:03:41:04
Keith
So that’s the technology. Then with our victims. We have unsuspecting drug users. And this is because the Xanax is counterfeit here. But we also have Pfizer because they make Xanax and then there’s a bunch of counterfeit Xanax up to the tune of about $4 million.

00:03:41:04 – 00:04:12:19
Keith
So I think by anybody’s measure, somebody lost money when you’re talking about $4 million. And in this case, Pfizer would be the direct victim of losing money in this case. Okay. So with all that out of the way, let’s go ahead and jump into this case. Act one, meet Stephan Caamano. Okay. And I’m just going to we’re going to jump right in in December of 2017.

00:04:12:19 – 00:04:39:00
Keith
Okay. There is this investigation and it starts. And immediately when I see that investigation starts, I started thinking, how do they know to start an investigation? I have the answer for you in this case. Customs and Border Patrol Protection agents. Okay. They watch things like mail coming into the U.S. and do scans on it for like drugs and Cuban cigars and stuff like that.

00:04:39:04 – 00:04:47:44
Keith
Well, they found some stuff in the mail and they let the DEA know that there are several items in transit to this individual named Stephan

00:04:47:44 – 00:05:09:40
Keith
Caamano. That’s the person I just told you about. Okay. So one of the things was a turbine wheel box pill press machine. Okay. So I got a picture of. Well, I’ve had Stephan there for a bit,

00:05:09:40 – 00:05:18:31
Keith
but now I have a picture of these pill presses because at first I was like a turbine box pill press.

00:05:18:31 – 00:05:35:12
Keith
I’m like, What the fuck is this thing? You know, me as a computer guy, I don’t know anything about making pills. So I had to do a little bit of research into this and here’s an image of where I when I went, How do you buy a pill press? It took me to this made in China website literally called Made in China.

00:05:35:17 – 00:05:57:59
Keith
And here’s all the different models of pill presses that you can buy from them. So if you were to make pills in mass, you can buy some of these these machines. And I’m telling you, like they’re not cheap. They cost several thousand dollars depending on what model you buy. And I’m just scanning the prices here. I see probably the lowest is about $3,000.

00:05:57:59 – 00:06:20:22
Keith
That’s probably the I only want to make a few pills all the way up to. Geez. I see at least $20,000 in this one graphic alone. And I didn’t even search all the all the machines on their website. So you can spend, you can either buy a car or you can buy a pill press that’s like they’re almost about the same cost here.

00:06:20:22 – 00:06:27:38
Keith
If you’re going for the high end stuff that you can get, I guess is like a pro-consumer. I don’t know how to categorize

00:06:27:38 – 00:06:50:53
Keith
this. So why would somebody want a pill press? Okay. A pill press basically takes powdered form of whatever drug it is. And I say drug loosely here. This could be legal or illegal, but basically a powdered form of some kind of drug and it makes it into a solid pill.

00:06:50:55 – 00:07:10:17
Keith
Okay. So I’m going to put some pictures of Xanax on your screen. Okay. The Xanax we’re going to be talking about in this episode I’m putting on your screen, I found a couple of pictures out there. One on the left hand side there shows you kind of a little bit resolution of how that two looks on here. And I think the two means two milligrams.

00:07:10:31 – 00:07:32:39
Keith
Okay. They didn’t specify in the court paperwork and I didn’t find it readily. But usually that’s what it means on pills. When you have a number, it’s whatever milligram dosage that it is now, you can also see the name Xanax on there. And then I got another image for you kind of blown up and how you might see it with the two sideways might look kind of weird unless you tip it.

00:07:32:39 – 00:07:53:12
Keith
I just want to show you another vantage point of it. This these this is the shape of pills we’re going to be talking about throughout this episode. So when I talk about the pills that he’s making in these presses, this is what you can imagine is popping out the other side of these machines that I just showed you by the individual that I showed you, even previous to that

00:07:53:12 – 00:07:53:53
Keith
image.

00:07:53:53 – 00:08:05:58
Keith
Okay? Like I said, Customs and Border Patrol, they they know some shit’s going through the mail, okay? And they know it’s drugs. So they’re like, hey, listen, we got a lot of shit that deal with. We got Cuban cigars coming in here.

00:08:05:58 – 00:08:29:04
Keith
We got whole people coming in in other packages. DEA, we need you to get involved. And so they give the DEA this information about this this pill press that’s going through the mail to this, and they trace it to this individual named Stephan Caamano. Now, there’s some other stuff going through the mail to him too. There’s pill press machine parts.

00:08:29:04 – 00:08:32:58
Keith
So there’s more than just this one pill press.

00:08:32:58 – 00:08:38:02
Keith
He’s getting one whole pill press through the mail and parts to other pill presses.

00:08:38:07 – 00:09:11:13
Keith
And that means he probably has additional complete pill presses back at his place in the U.S. already that he’s buying parts for. That’s not all. So I’m not going to say the whole medical name for it, which is, I’ll try. Okay. I’ll try alprazolam. Sorry, doctors if I if I murdered that or, you know, of what am I thinking of pharmacy workers if I murder that name, I am so, so sorry.

00:09:11:13 – 00:09:36:20
Keith
Pharmacist, you can correct me all you want. I know I’m aware of these things. I’m going to be calling a Xanax throughout here because that’s what Pfizer calls and what they make. And Xanax is just a lot easier. And when I do the voice to text closed captions for everybody, especially for those that are hard of hearing Xanax is a lot easier for the computer to compute when it comes out of my mouth.

00:09:36:20 – 00:10:04:13
Keith
So I’m going to keep saying it that way. So at the end of the day, you add all that up, you add, I didn’t finish that Xanax also going through the mail. So the medicine itself is also going through the mail with to the destination where these pill presses are. So you can imagine you start putting two, two together, you’re like, some hankie shit’s going on with Stephan Caamano and this is what starts the whole investigation.

00:10:04:13 – 00:10:37:48
Keith
So these shipments that the Customs and Border Patrol had highlighted to the DEA, they figured out they’re going to Champaign, Illinois, and out in California. Okay. So that was late 2017 and I was talking about March eight, 2018. By this date, agents were actually doing active surveillance outside Caamano’s residence at this place called… It’s Glenshire Drive in Champaign, Illinois.

00:10:37:48 – 00:10:42:22
Keith
And I’m not going to put the full number on there, but if you’re watching the video,

00:10:42:22 – 00:10:56:19
Keith
I’m putting a picture of the house on there and you’ll see the full number here. So I’m not going to say it and I can’t say it out loud. This is the house, okay? And it took me a little bit because Google Maps, sometimes you put it in and it’s like it’s this house.

00:10:56:19 – 00:11:16:48
Keith
And I look at it, I’m like, well, no, that’s not the number. And then you kind of have to walk up and down the street with Google and look around a little bit and go, that’s the number. I can actually see it on the house. This is the house. I know this because I looked at the fucking physical number on the house and this is this is the one. Now, somebody else owns this house

00:11:16:48 – 00:11:37:09
Keith
at the time this picture was taken by Google, I tried to pick a time when he owned it and Google didn’t have a picture in their database of that and it was clearly after he owned it and most likely before he owned it. And I didn’t want to, you know, do pictures of anybody else. So just know that when I’m showing you this picture and I’m going to crack the next joke here

00:11:37:13 – 00:12:03:19
Keith
this is of future owners not Stephan Caamano. Now, if you’re watching a video now, I, I push this stuff out in 4K. So if you’re watching on desktop or on your phone, that’s got a really good resolution fucking stream of 4K because if you if you scroll in or zoom in on this house, there’s actual icicles hanging down and I was like, when I looked at this picture, I was like, Why are there icicles hanging off this?

00:12:03:19 – 00:12:29:55
Keith
They must not take in their Christmas decorations. And it is clearly summer here. Clearly summer. Grass is growing. In fact, I think it says August 2023 in Google’s picture up there. So, you know, these I don’t know if they’re so fucking hardcore with their Christmas decorations that they’re just like, we’re going to leave these sons of bitches up all year round and don’t look outside because they’re going to be twinkling in the middle of August, or they’re just kind of like me and my wife

00:12:29:55 – 00:12:36:00
Keith
and we just kinda leave things outside way longer than we should. Who knows? But that was immediately the first thing that I noticed in this picture.

00:12:36:00 – 00:12:52:11
Keith
Okay, So now there’s active surveillance going on at this house on March 8th of 2018. They notice at 10 a.m. in the morning, Caamano leaves his residence and he leaves in a 2017 blue Toyota RAV4.

00:12:52:11 – 00:13:12:53
Keith
Now it’s 2018, so this car’s only a year old back then. So like pretty new and sweet back then. So what I’m telling you this now, in 2024 or maybe future years, if you back up a watch this, it was a pretty sweet car that, you know, 2017 sounds like meh now on to that 2024. But back then, pretty sweet.

00:13:12:58 – 00:13:37:25
Keith
Okay. So what does Caamano do? He stops at a postal a United States Postal service, like a no shit postal drop box, like the blue kind that you probably imagine when you close your eyes and you think of a mailbox. This is the kind that he visits. I bet you’re wondering. You’re like, there’s no fucking way that guy knows that it was a blue box just like that.

00:13:37:30 – 00:14:00:34
Keith
Hold the fuck up. Because I found it. I found the goddamn box. I did, I did. I’ll show you a picture of it. Okay. So he stops at 2012 Round Barn Road at Champagne, Illinois. Okay. He stops there, and you wonder what he’s going to do. And immediately I’m getting into the story. And I remember I was just like, I gotta imagine this.

00:14:00:34 – 00:14:21:10
Keith
Right? So I get I Google it. I pull up Google Maps, and then Google Maps is like, it’s like the shopping center. Okay, So first of all, I got to say, who has two thumbs up and found this mailbox for you? This son of a bitch. And if you disagree with that statement, you’ve got to go back and listen to season one, episode nine, the rebate kingpin.

00:14:21:10 – 00:14:21:18
Keith
All

00:14:21:18 – 00:14:35:28
Keith
right. So in this research, I found the shopping center and it said, you know, if you been to Google, it’s just that dot right in the middle of that picture there. And I was like, all right, I’m going to find this mailbox for my listeners.

00:14:35:28 – 00:14:49:56
Keith
So I click on it and the next thing it shows me is this like it’s a very nondescript strip mall shopping center, and it’s got a secretary of state, which is, we used to have these when I was young.

00:14:49:56 – 00:15:14:48
Keith
But a lot of times now they’re called DMV’s, Department of Motor Vehicles, Secretary of State, same thing. It just named differently in other states that I’ve lived in. So you can imagine the government, they work there, right? I mean, this is a traditional strip mall. There’s this good vibes place there, which is like this car stereo store and installation place, and there’s this eyewear place right next to it.

00:15:14:48 – 00:15:29:28
Keith
And I’m not going to show you all the pictures. You could turn to the right in this picture and look all the way down the street. And there’s a bunch of other strip malls, some of them are closed. But the important thing was, I like, where the fuck is this this mailbox? And I’m looking at the secretary of state, right?

00:15:29:28 – 00:15:40:39
Keith
Because you would think if you want to go get it, drop some mail off at this address, which is where Stephan Caamano was, you would go to the secretary of state because that’s a government building.

00:15:40:39 – 00:15:52:05
Keith
No, here’s another picture. If you turn all the way around backwards, that’s the mailbox. So this mailbox, this is where Stephan Caamano stopped.

00:15:52:10 – 00:16:17:49
Keith
He stopped right here, right after he left his house. And investigators are watching him. And what do you think he does at this mailbox that I spent all that time finding for you? He takes manila envelopes out of his car, I guess, and maybe out of his pocket. I don’t know. It just kind of looks around and drops them in the mailbox and takes off.

00:16:17:54 – 00:16:28:28
Keith
So now agents, they’re probably like, fuck. All right, Well, Caamano took off, but he obviously puts something in the mailbox. So we got to we got to figure out what the fuck it was he

00:16:28:28 – 00:16:38:16
Keith
dropped. Okay, so there’s this, like, agent process behind the scene where they get ahold of postal and postal comes out and unlocks the box for them and all that kind of stuff.

00:16:38:21 – 00:17:01:59
Keith
And they look in there and they go, The only thing in here that fits what we saw was 33 yellow manila envelopes. And these are this the traditional office, you know, note sized, full sized letter mailing envelopes, the yellow ones that you have seen. And so the agents look at them and they’re like, I wonder who the fuck these are going to and who they’re from.

00:17:02:08 – 00:17:25:40
Keith
And they first looked at who they’re from, and all of them are addressed from Colin H. Taylor. This name, my friends, this is used several times, so keep this name in mind. Colin Taylor, that’s going to pop up a few times. They also looked at the shipping label, which was generated online through a shipping company called Easy Post.

00:17:25:44 – 00:17:43:14
Keith
Okay. And when you go to this place and you set up an account and you start shipping packages through them, you have an account number. And when they looked at the account number across all these manila envelopes ends up being the same account number. I’ll say once for you and then later on I’m just going to keep saying easy post.

00:17:43:19 – 00:18:19:05
Keith
It’s c26321. But later on I’m just going to say the easy post account number. Okay. Again, numbers don’t really matter in these cases. We want to figure out what the hell he did. So now agents, they observed that one of the 33 packages was addressed to an individual in Saint Louis, Missouri. So law enforcement later obtained consent from the individual that this was addressed to to open that package. Hold that thought for a second, because I have a thought on that.

00:18:19:10 – 00:18:42:05
Keith
So they open it up. They get consent from the recipient and they open it up as a clear plastic vacuum sealed bag. Okay. And it has these white elongated pills. Remember the pills I showed you earlier with the two and the Xanax? They’re long just like these, and they’re marked Xanax. And the number two, just like I showed you in the pictures.

00:18:42:10 – 00:19:06:56
Keith
So when they when they weigh it, it ended up weighing 335 grams, which sounds like a lot of fucking pills. I what I get my I’m an old man, so I get pills right? When I go to the to the pharmacist, I get maybe 90 pills at a time. Maybe. Well, I guess 90 day supply. So at worst, what times

00:19:06:56 – 00:19:31:05
Keith
three? So 270 pills tops. I bet you it does not weigh 335 grams when you weigh one of those 90 day supplies of three pills each, I can’t imagine it even gets close. So the recipient, there’s fucking drugs in there, right? So the government’s not going to be like, here’s your drugs. They they keep it. They seize this package from them.

00:19:31:10 – 00:19:51:11
Keith
And then for a moment I was like, Why did the recipient give consent to open it? Right? If that was Keith Jones, that was my name on there. And I knew they were Xanax pills, I’d have been like, What fucking package? I have no idea what you’re talking about, right? I wouldn’t give consent. I’d be like, There’s a package coming through the mail?

00:19:51:11 – 00:20:10:39
Keith
I don’t know what it is. Or maybe maybe Keith Jones, knowing that Xanax was coming to him, would say, I don’t know what. There’s no package coming to me. I have no idea. And then the agents would be like, Do you mind if we open it? And I’d be like, Of course, I had no idea what’s coming to me.

00:20:10:40 – 00:20:31:39
Keith
Go, go ahead and open it. They’d open it and say, this is Xanax Keith. And I would be like, I’m so shocked. I’m so shocked you found Xanax in there. And maybe that’s my cover story. I’m not a criminal. So sometimes I just got to when that court documents don’t tell you, I got to tell you what my idea might be in these cases.

00:20:31:44 – 00:20:52:25
Keith
Okay. So like I said, Xanax pills in there, definite Xanax pills in there. This is not an isolated incident. Okay. I’m going to give you the details of the first one. And I’m not going to give you all the details every time there’s an incident. That was the detailed explanation. So there are other mail drops that I’m going to talk to you about

00:20:52:25 – 00:21:12:51
Keith
these just generally. Okay. You can imagine very, very similar mail envelopes. You have names and they’re of the same name. Gosh. What was it? I think it was Colin Taylor. I don’t have it in front of me. There’s going to be another name that shows up to you. These two names are going to, they’re going to show up in all these mail drops.

00:21:12:56 – 00:21:40:52
Keith
So there is a mail carrier. Okay. That basically at some point makes a statement or makes a complaint and says, hey, there’s a whole bunch of these manila envelopes that have been deposited into other postal drop boxes in the vicinity of Mattis Avenue and Kirby Avenue in Champaign, Illinois. Now, this is the part I had to highlight, because this is the part where I sat back in my chair.

00:21:40:52 – 00:22:01:39
Keith
Okay. Just hold on for a second. This blew my mind… each day for more than a year! Okay. So we saw 33 packages, these manila envelopes landing in one box on one day, imagine the same thing happening each day for more than a year.

00:22:01:39 – 00:22:26:19
Keith
The mail carrier, just in their estimation, they said, hey, God, if I think back, I think it’s been a fucking year. Nobody’s listened to me. But hey, if I think back on it, it was about 50 to 100 packages per day being deposited there. Okay. So I sat down here for a second. I was like, Holy shit, let’s do some math, right?

00:22:26:19 – 00:22:52:03
Keith
Let’s just I’m going to pick up a calculator, do some math, 365 days a year, 50, and we’ll do times 50 and then we’ll do times 100 and we’ll see what that range is. So that range of packages in a year is between 18,250 packages on the low side and 36,500 packages on the high side. Oh my fucking God, that’s a lot of packages.

00:22:52:03 – 00:23:17:31
Keith
Okay. Even on the low side, 18,000 packages in a year. Holy Jesus, Maybe. Maybe the sender took weekends and holidays off and we can subtract there. But I’m still it’s got to be over 10,000 packages to even subtract that. Right? It’s got to be a lot of packages. You just. My gosh. So that was one set of boxes.

00:23:17:36 – 00:23:43:25
Keith
Okay, so I’ve only introduced you to one incident on one box, and now I introduce you to a year’s activity, another set of boxes. Okay, let’s drill in. Let’s drill in on this set of boxes for a second. This mail carrier, he made a complaint, okay? And I. I’m sorry. I know I poke fun at everything. I. Life is hard, right?

00:23:43:25 – 00:24:00:13
Keith
You got to poke fun at the tough stuff. And this is tough stuff. So let’s poke fun of this a little bit. I imagine this mail carrier who said they made a formal complaint in March of 2017 and this complaint wasn’t like, hey, I think there’s drugs being sent through the mail. We really need to take a look at this.

00:24:00:13 – 00:24:25:00
Keith
There’s there could be people dying. No, the complaint to management was the quality of manila envelopes going through the mail has made their collection duties very difficult to complete. So. So not holy shit, there could be drugs going through the mail. It was there’s too many goddamn packages. I can’t deliver all this shit. I just can’t deliver on all this shit.

00:24:25:14 – 00:24:44:22
Keith
And so immediately my mind went fucking Newman and Seinfeld. So immediately. I’m sorry if you’re the postal person here and you’re listening to this, I’m so sorry. But in my mind, in my mind you are now Newman complaining about the packages that you don’t want to deliver because there’s so many of them. And I agree with you, we just did the math.

00:24:44:22 – 00:25:07:10
Keith
It was like 18 to 36000 a year. That’s a lot of fucking packages. Who would want to deliver that? I agree with you. You should complain. Okay, So in this case, this event had a different name. It wasn’t the Colin Taylor that we talked about earlier. It’s Sharon Lee. Okay. That’s the second name that you’re going to see on these collection of packages.

00:25:07:15 – 00:25:33:05
Keith
But but the shipping labels were still created by Easy Post using that same account number. Okay. That account number becomes a common theme throughout this whole crime. Okay. So it doesn’t really matter what else he does, like change his name to Sharon Lee, he’s like, I’ll make it a girl. Nobody will catch me now. Well, then he uses the same fucking account number everywhere in this crime.

00:25:33:19 – 00:25:57:32
Keith
So all the cops have to do is go… Well, it doesn’t matter that the name of Sharon Lee, it’s paid for by the same account, which eventually we will see is tied to Stephan Caamano. Okay. All right. So one more tidbit, right? So Newman’s complaining at this point. It’s like there’s too many godamn, the I can’t, there’s too much to deliver.

00:25:57:37 – 00:26:19:02
Keith
And then he says, not only can I not deliver it, there’s a fictitious person as the sender here, so we’re going to need that shit all corrected if you want me to deliver it. So he went to the point, or at least the Postal Service went to the point of figuring out this was not a legit place sending tons of manila envelopes.

00:26:19:02 – 00:26:43:41
Keith
This is a fictitious place, sending tons of envelopes. And I don’t know if I was on the route at this point I’d go… Shit. What’s in here? Probably drugs or, you know, something bad, right? Right. So we’re going to fast forward to another event. So we’re going to leave those two events in the dust and we’re going to talk about another shipment.

00:26:43:46 – 00:27:07:57
Keith
This is February 21st of 2018. So this is what I’m calling the return sender dilemma. And this is when you put a realistic person on your package as the person that sent something. But the person on the other end either doesn’t receive it because the mail fucked up or because they go, there might be drugs in here and or maybe they changed their mind.

00:27:07:57 – 00:27:32:28
Keith
They knew there were drugs in there. They’re like, I don’t want them because they’re scared. Or maybe it’s legita person going, Why did I get sent this? And it wasn’t them and they send it back. Well, it’s got to go back to the original spot, right? And if you fake the person on that package as the sender, the real package is going to go back to that person that you put on there as the fake person.

00:27:32:32 – 00:27:52:48
Keith
So when this happens, when you got you have tens of thousands of packages, you know, at some point the mail person is going to look at that and go, is that a one or an L? We can’t tell. And they will send it back to the originator going, you got to you got to fix this shit. Right. That’s that’s what the mail people do.

00:27:52:52 – 00:28:16:23
Keith
So these real packages of drugs now are coming back to some of the senders that weren’t the real senders. And there’s this one person that I’m just going to talk their initials TA, okay. TA. So TA gets one of these packages and it says return to sender on it, she’s like, And now I consider TA a victim here and now I know their address because it’s in the court paperwork.

00:28:16:23 – 00:28:32:35
Keith
I’m not going to show you a picture of this where it happens because I consider her a victim so far because I didn’t see that she actually ordered any of this stuff. So I’m not going to show you a picture of where it landed. But TA gets this package, she looks at and goes, I didn’t order this.

00:28:32:35 – 00:28:55:34
Keith
Well, at this point, later on, she tells the sheriff she goes, I didn’t send any boxes and I got this thing back. So I decide to open one and check out what was in here. Now, TA had some guts. Now, if I start seeing shit show up at my house that said that I sent it, I don’t know if I’d want to be opening it because immediately I’d be like, there’s going to be a head inside.

00:28:55:39 – 00:29:14:56
Keith
Well, I guess these are manila envelopes, so it has to be a real small head to fit in a manila envelope. But any, any package, any package, I’d be afraid to open it if it said if I saw myself as a sender and I knew I didn’t send it, okay, that would be going to law enforcement fucking immediately in my house. But TA opened it.

00:29:15:01 – 00:29:32:45
Keith
And she goes, There’s Xanax in here. I didn’t What, what is this shit? And she goes to the police and she’s like, You guys need to take this. Fuck that shit. I don’t want that in my house. That’s a whole bunch of Xanax. And it was it was a whole bunch of Xanax that purportedly she sent to somebody.

00:29:32:50 – 00:29:55:56
Keith
And because it bounced back, she got it. And this is another one of those incidents where the police can then start to put in their investigation against Stephan Caamano. Now, they took a look at these box, these boxes and manila envelopes, and they look at them and they go, same easy post account number this dummy has been putting on everything else.

00:29:55:56 – 00:30:19:32
Keith
God, I hope he doesn’t know that we’re tracking him through this fucking account number everywhere because we’re going to be able to put this picture together easily if he doesn’t change this account number. It was the same one. He used the same names. Colin Taylor, he used Sharon Lee. So everything was the same. So they can start piecing all these distribution of Xanax to Stephan Caamano.

00:30:19:32 – 00:30:37:21
Keith
And this is important because in the US, if you’re not from the US, I’m gonna explain this to you. There are different levels you can be charged it if you’re caught with drugs. There’s basically like a user level where it’s kind of like it’s, you know, if they find a couple of pills, they go, Hey, are you using this?

00:30:37:33 – 00:31:05:48
Keith
Like, Yeah, it was my pills. It was only like three, right? That’s one level. The next level is the dealer level. And that might be and I’m just making these numbers up, but you might have maybe a hundred pills because you’re selling to a bunch of individuals and making money. And then there’s the trafficker and the traffickers. When you start dealing with things like thousands of pills and you’re going to hear thousands of pills later on, this is the level we’re dealing with with Stephan

00:31:05:48 – 00:31:29:05
Keith
Caamano. With the drug distribution, it wasn’t it wasn’t that he was a college, and I say this loosely and just kind of jokingly, but the college student trying to make money because, you know, on the side selling drugs. Right. Like, I’m thinking back in my day, it was more like somebody selling weed in Michigan, which was weed was illegal everywhere

00:31:29:05 – 00:31:56:19
Keith
when I went to college. But I’m like, okay, maybe Stephan Caamano is that college student trying to sell drugs? No, he is selling thousands of pills. He is making his own pills. He is a trafficker. Okay, a trafficker. So from this point forward, think of this when I’m describing these events to you. And now, mind you, he’s using all the same names, all the same account number.

00:31:56:19 – 00:32:09:19
Keith
So all law enforcement, they’re just piecing all this stuff together. And right now they’re in a passive mode, okay? They’re in a passive mode where they’re kind of getting the information that’s going through the mail and piecing things together.

00:32:09:19 – 00:32:33:28
Keith
Okay. But later on, they’re going to be getting a little more hands on. They’re going to be doing controlled deliveries and stuff. And that’s where I’m going with this. So now this Xanax package that they got through these returned senders, when law enforcement’s looking at them, they go, fuck, that’s not right.

00:32:33:33 – 00:32:59:16
Keith
It’s these markings on them. Hey, Bob, those look lighter to you? Bob looks at them and goes, Yeah, yeah. Those are definitely those are lighter than the usual Xanax. And those police officers, they have a keen eye, especially those DEA agents. They have keen eye, they look at that shit, they go, Yeah, those are fake. Those are fake Xanax pills. And now I’m starting to think. My mind’s going crazy

00:32:59:16 – 00:33:22:27
Keith
in this research of this case, I’m thinking, why does he need to fake the pills? Now I can guess. They didn’t say in the court paperwork why he needs to fake the pills. I think maybe it was to stretch his dollar. Maybe he bought some cheap cutting agent. He bought some Xanax, and he said, I’m going to make two milligram pills that are actually one milligram pills and make more money because people want more pills.

00:33:22:27 – 00:33:45:08
Keith
And, you know, it’ll look more to the user, but they’re just getting like baking soda or some kind of cutting agent that isn’t Xanax. That’s what I thought maybe was the reason he was using to make these fake Xanax pills. But then here’s an unanswered question I’m not able to answer for you. How was he able to make the Xanax markings?

00:33:45:12 – 00:33:59:15
Keith
I imagine there’s some kind of tooling you need with the word Xanax on it. And the number two that you have to buy for your pill press to press it into the pills. How did he get that? I can’t imagine you can buy that on the street like you can

00:33:59:15 – 00:34:02:22
Keith
with that press that I showed you made in China earlier.

00:34:02:27 – 00:34:04:14
Keith
So all these things are

00:34:04:14 – 00:34:25:55
Keith
things I think about when I do the research that, you know, you can think about. I don’t have answers to them yet. So March 27th, 2018, they test these pills because it could be anything, right? I mean, nowadays if you buy some white pill, it could be fentanyl, it could be all baking soda and then just a little bit of fentanyl.

00:34:26:00 – 00:34:46:15
Keith
And then that way the user has it fentanyl will hit you so hard that they’re like, Wow, that was really good Xanax. And really, you weren’t on a benzodiazepine, like a Xanax bar. You were on an opiate like fentanyl, and you had no idea. So because of that law enforcement, they do that check. They crush them up and put it through the tests.

00:34:46:16 – 00:35:26:32
Keith
They said, we’re we’re pretty sure specifically more than 95% sure these 83,000 pills. Yes, I know. And you’re like, that’s a lot of pills. No, it was actually more than 83,000, 83,538 pills are Xanax. So this guy is seriously trafficking Xanax. Okay. He’s on a end high end of drug distribution at this point when you’re talking almost 100,000 pills in just one testing session.

00:35:26:37 – 00:35:56:58
Keith
Now, at this point, law enforcement’s like, there’s a lot of pills going by. Let’s take that easy post account number and see what else is being sent through the mail, because apparently this is a common fucking thread to this criminal to use this one account. So let’s see what else is one account is sending and they find that this place or this easy account, I keep saying easy account, easy post account number has sent pills.

00:35:57:07 – 00:36:29:44
Keith
More pills to Cleveland. Okay. Now the resident ends up turning it over. Had no knowledge of this parcel and it again it originated in Illinois. Surprise, surprise. That’s where Stephan Caamano is. This parcel itself, it was on the light side. It only had around 1000 Xanax pills. So a lot that he’s not getting something from, you know, the Pillpack dot com or whatever the Amazon thing is to send you your pharmacy through the mail.

00:36:29:49 – 00:36:55:49
Keith
This is definitely illicit drugs going through the mail, a thousand pills at a time, probably two milligrams per pill. And then later on, they crushed it up and they test it. They’re like, yup, yup, definitely Xanax. Definitely Xanax. It looks like Xanax. And Xanax is in in these white pills that we see in these packages. And again, you know, the investigators, they look at this easy post account number.

00:36:55:49 – 00:37:00:56
Keith
They find more packages going to other addresses in Cleveland,

00:37:00:56 – 00:37:37:44
Keith
You know, they have the name Colin Taylor on there. There was they’re all sent from Champaign, Illinois or Urbana, Illinois, which I understand are pretty close to each other. But it is that account itself that investigators are starting to use to go, well, there’s a shipment of Xanax, there’s a shipment of Xanax because they can just go to the easy post account and if you’re not familiar with it, you can actually go to the U.S. mailing system and say, this is the address I own and I want to see pictures of all my mail that I’m getting today.

00:37:37:49 – 00:38:10:11
Keith
They’ve got systems in place to do that. And I can imagine an investigator somewhere sat down and said, go through the pictures and find the account numbers where easy post has sent this account, this account number that they keep talking about, this easy post account number, show me all the labels where this easy post account number shows up and I imagine there’s some computerized process behind the scene where it’s like bing and says it’s these 40 packages and they go, okay, well, it’s these 40 packages going to Cleveland, Ohio that we need to check for Xanax.

00:38:10:16 – 00:38:26:00
Keith
That’s a point where we’re stopping in this case because we’re going to put a pause here where this case is actually a little longer than I thought it was going to be. So we’re going to do this in two acts. Okay. That was act number one. Okay. You’ve got to meet Stephan Caamano. Act number two, which I’m going to release tomorrow,

00:38:26:00 – 00:38:49:28
Keith
that’s going to be act number two, the controlled delivery. This is where law enforcement gets their you know, they they go active in the investigation. They don’t have to sit back and watch what’s going through the mail anymore. They’re going to actually do a controlled delivery, which is going to lead to the whole big investigation that’s going to lead to Stephan Caamano in the end.

00:38:49:28 – 00:39:03:42
Keith
So the whole second act, that’s going to be whole law enforcement going to court and how he’s punished and all that great stuff. So I hope you come back and join me tomorrow and act two the controlled delivery.

00:39:03:42 – 00:39:29:59
Keith
And before you leave, please remember, like subscribe, thumbs up, follow whatever it is on your application that you’re watching me on. I truly appreciate it. That just gets this video and audio in front of other people that will enjoy watching true crime podcasts where the guy is not super serious. So with that, I hope you come back tomorrow and I will enjoy finishing this case out in act two, the controlled delivery.

00:39:30:13 – 00:39:32:48
Keith
All right, thanks, bye.

00:39:32:48 – 00:39:42:48

DrKeithJones.com

$4m In Fake Xanax – Act 1: Meet Stephan Caamano

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