Chambana Sun

City of Urbana issued the following announcement on May 30.

URBANA — A 22-year-old Champaign man accused of operating a robust illegal drug-manufacturing operation out of his west Champaign home is in the custody of federal marshals.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Eric Long on Wednesday ordered that Stephan Caamano be examined by a psychologist to see if he is competent enough to understand and cooperate in his own defense on charges of distribution and attempted distribution of a controlled substance filed Tuesday by the government.

Surrounded by five federal marshals and three court security officers, Caamano was wheeled into Long's courtroom in a chair to which he was shackled.

For a few minutes before the hearing began, he hung his head backward at a 90-degree angle, jerked it from side to side, twitched, made bizarre facial expressions ranging from eye squinting to broad grins, and intermittently made incomprehensible noises.

When Long took the bench, Caamano was quiet but made no eye contact with the judge.

Because of Caamano's inability or unwillingness to talk with Assistant U.S. Public Defender Peter Henderson, Long continued the detention hearing until Caamano can be assessed by a psychologist.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Katie Boyle appeared for the government in the 10-minute hearing that concluded with Long ordering that Caamano be held in a federal mental-health facility until the psychological exam is finished.

A probable-cause affidavit accompanying the criminal complaint was unsealed after Wednesday's hearing.

In it, the government alleges that between September 2016 and this past weekend, Caamano was engaged in the production of counterfeit Xanax, an often-abused anti-anxiety drug, which he was mailing from U.S. Postal Service boxes in Champaign to other states, using an EasyPost account.

EasyPost bills itself as an "integrated shipping estimator for eCom in North America. that specializes in shipping solutions and can access rates from many shipping providers including the USPS, Canada Post, UPS, FedEx, DHL" and other private carriers.

The investigation began in December after Customs and Border Protection agents seized items being mailed from China for delivery to Caamano at addresses associated with him in California and Champaign.

Those items included alprazolam, which is marketed under the brand name Xanax, and a pill-press machine and parts for the machine.

According to Caamano's Linkedin account, he attended the University of California at Berkeley from 2014 to 2016, then came to the University of Illinois.

In 2016, he was the recipient of a U.S. Department of Education fellowship to pursue a doctorate in the UI's Mathematics Department, according to its website. The UI confirmed he was a student in fall 2016.The fellowship, part of the Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need program, is a grant intended to help the smartest, brightest graduate students pursue the highest degree available to them in a field designated as an area of national need.

The affidavit said that Caamano was living in the 1500 block of Glenshire Drive. He also had a rental unit in the 500 block of South Fair Street.

On March 8, Drug Enforcement Administration agents watched Caamano drive from the Glenshire house to a mail-collection box in the 2000 block of Round Barn Road and put multiple manila envelopes in it.

Working with postal authorities, agents recovered 33 envelopes from that mailbox. They came from the same sender and had EasyPost labels that all had the same account number.One of the packages was addressed to a person in St. Louis, who gave agents permission to open it. In it they found a vacuum-sealed bag with pills labeled with "Xanax" and "2" that weighed 335 grams each.

The mail carrier who regularly emptied four mail-collection boxes near Mattis and Kirby avenues reported that each day for more than a year, he picked up between 50 and 100 manila envelopes — so many that he complained to superiors in March 2017 that it was making it hard for him to complete his duties.

That carrier took a picture in March 2017 of the label. It had the same EasyPost account number agents found on the 33 envelopes they seized March 8, 2018.

On March 9, agents received information from the Champaign County Sheriff's Office that a woman living on Halifax Drive in Champaign received four boxes from the postal service identifying her as the return sender.

The woman told deputies she had not sent the boxes and opened one, finding numerous Xanax pills. The boxes had the same EasyPost account number as the others.

Agents opened all the boxes and found "that several of the pills had lighter markings, indicating possible counterfeit production." A lab reported there were 83,538 pills in those four packages.

Also on March 8, police in Cleveland got a package from a resident that had originated in Urbana containing more than 1,000 alprazolam pills. The resident had no knowledge of it.

On March 22, Cleveland police found mailings going to another Cleveland address that came from a return address in Urbana associated with the same EasyPost account number as all the other packages.

And on March 26, Cleveland police and DEA agents did controlled deliveries of two other packages associated with that shipping account and found they contained "various narcotics, numerous Priority Mailing envelopes, label makers, and a food-saver machine with plastic bags commonly used for vacuum packaging."

The intended recipient told agents they had bought the Xanax from a "darkweb" vendor, having purchased $14,000 worth of product in three buys during the winter and spring of 2018 at 60 cents per pill. The buyer completed the purchase by sending cryptocurrency to a wallet provided by the vendor.

On March 29, a package from the same EasyPost account was turned in to the Normal post office as "refused mail." Originating in Urbana, the package weighed 2 pounds and was headed to a Los Angeles address. The woman whose return address was on the package said she had no knowledge of it or the 1,000 pills marked "Xanax" inside.

Armed with all that information, DEA agents got search warrants for Caamano's rental residence on South Fair Street and the $246,000 house on Glenshire Drive, which they served Sunday night, the eve of Memorial Day.

They reported the Fair Street apartment was mostly empty but had metal machine parts, proof of residency, an instruction manual for a scale, a laptop computer and a cutting-agent powder inside.

At the Glenshire address, they said they found a veritable smorgasbord of items related to drugmaking.

Those included non-FDA-approved painkillers, psychedelics and anti-nausea medications; a partially dismantled pill press; powders used to press pills; sealing machines; counterfeit Xanax; packaging and shipping materials; several cellphones; computers; and computer components containing memory and hard-drive space.

Caamano's case is expected to be presented to a federal grand jury next week.

It's unknown how long a psychological evaluation will take to complete.

Original source can be found here.

Source: City of Urbana