Corsicana man who paid for Plano house by selling drugs on dark web gets 78 months in prison

A Corsicana man who was convicted of using the “dark web” to sell cocaine, heroin and other drugs was sentenced Thursday to six and a half years in prison, according to federal prosecutors.

Aaron Brewer, 39, was arrested in July 2020 as part of a law enforcement operation aimed at disrupting the illegal sale of opioids on the dark web, the online network that requires special software to access.

The nine-month operation involved law enforcement agencies from the U.S. and Europe and resulted in 179 arrests in seven nations and the seizure of over $6.5 million in drugs and at least 63 guns, federal prosecutors said.

Brewer pleaded guilty in December to one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute a controlled substance.

After his arrest, authorities from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the FBI’s Dallas field office confiscated hundreds of grams in black tar heroin, cocaine and oxycodone, as well as a ledger outlining 757 drug shipments to more than 600 unique addresses between December 2019 and March 2020, according to the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas.

Brewer accepted cryptocurrency payments in his drug transactions, the U.S. attorney’s office said.

“After receiving payment, Mr. Brewer used the U.S. mail and other shipping services to transmit controlled substances to customers in North Texas and across the country,” the office said in a prepared statement.

Brewer confessed to selling over 4,100 grams of cocaine and over 80 grams of black tar heroin from June 2019 to about April 2020, according to court records. He used an apartment in Dallas’ Uptown neighborhood to package and distribute drugs, records state.

He put over $50,000 in drug money toward mortgage payments on a house near Alma and Legacy drives in Plano, according to the U.S. attorney’s office. A judge ordered him to pay back $50,000, the office said. He also agreed to forfeit the house, court records state.

Brewer’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.