British man arrested in Vancouver found guilty of conspiracy to sell drugs that killed U.S. navy sailors

Scales of justice. (Shutterstock)

A British citizen is facing a possible life sentence in the United States after he was arrested by the RCMP in Vancouver and later convicted for his role in trafficking drugs that killed two U.S. navy submariners.

Paul Anthony Nicholls, 47, was found guilty on Jan. 29 of one count of conspiracy to import controlled substances resulting in death and one count of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances resulting in death.

The four-day trial was held in the state of Georgia, where two petty officers in the U.S. navy died in separate overdoses in 2017.

The RCMP says it used “pioneering methods” to trace the deadly drugs to a dark web network, known as “Canada1,” based in Metro Vancouver.

The U.S. district attorney for southern Georgia says the “Canada1” network operated on a dark web marketplace called “Dream Market,” where it advertised and sold the synthetic opioid U-47700 and the fentanyl analogue methoxy acetyl fentanyl.

‘East Van ECO Tours’ alias

Nicholls was identified mailing packages with the logo for a shell company called “East Van ECO Tours” through Canada Post.

“Following weeks of surveillance, investigators intercepted over 40 packages bearing the ‘East Van ECO Tours’ markings and found them all to contain dangerous fentanyl analogues in both nasal spray and powder form,” the district attorney’s office said in a statement.

A search of the man’s property and that of an alleged co-conspirator turned up further evidence of the network, including an estimated $24 million worth of fentanyl analogues at the alleged accomplice’s home, according to the statement.

Investigators also found receipts for thousands of packages sent all over the world. Among those receipts were tracking numbers for two packages sent to Kingsland, Ga., in October 2017. U.S. navy members Brian Jerrell, 25, and Ty Bell, 26, consumed the contents of those packages and died of opioid overdoses at Bell’s home later that month.

Nicholls was initially arrested in 2018 after overstaying his visa in Canada. He was sent back to the U.K. where he was again arrested in May 2022. Co-accused Thomas Michael Federuik, of West Vancouver, was arrested by the RCMP on the same day.

U.S. authorities sought to extradite Federuik in 2024, but the request was denied when a B.C. Supreme Court judge found the authorities did not provide documents supporting his removal from Canada within the time limit allowed following his arrest.

Under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, extradition applications must be completed within 60 days of the subject’s arrest. Due to an administrative error, the U.S. missed the deadline to extradite Federuik by two days.

• Read more: B.C. judge rejects extradition of man accused of selling drugs that killed U.S. navy sailors

A statement Thursday from the RCMP’s federal policing division says officers worked closely with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and local police in Georgia under the RCMP project name E-Plebania.

Mandatory minimum sentence

Mounties say the project was the first case to develop and adapt new investigative techniques to track drugs on the dark web and in the postal system.

Gary Mehat, the acting officer in charge of the federal RCMP’s Pacific region drugs and organized crime division, says the agency’s investigators and analysts were instrumental in gathering evidence and providing testimony to secure the guilty verdict for Nicholls.

“Their commitment to pursuing justice across borders, their meticulous attention to detail, their pioneering techniques and their professional expertise in the courtroom exemplify the highest standard of the RCMP and international law enforcement,” Mehat said in the statement.

Nicholls faces a minimum mandatory sentence of 20 years in prison, plus significant monetary penalties, according to the district attorney’s office.

“This conviction was achieved through the hard work and co-operation of our law enforcement officers and Canadian law enforcement,” Meg Heap, the U.S. district attorney, said in a statement. “Two of our navy sailors died because of Nicholl’s distribution of lethal drugs.”