Post navigation

Prev: (12/11/18) | Next: (12/12/18)

Drug and gun charges for man feds say was prolific fake Xanax dealer around Capitol Hill

The haul recovered during searches last week (Image: SPD)

A man investigators say has been dealing marijuana, coke, oxy, and Adderall out of a Capitol Hill apartment for years has been arrested and charged with federal drug crimes after being nailed by Seattle Police detectives working in conjunction with Homeland Security and the King County Sheriff’s Office major crimes unit.

28-year-old Gizachew Degol Wondie was arrested Thursday morning by police at the E Denny Way apartment after an informant tipped off Homeland Security about his activities involving counterfeit Xanax and a King County Sheriff homicide investigation produced the needed search warrants.

Homeland Security says that Wondie was found in his silver Audi in front of the E Denny apartment building about a block from Cal Anderson carrying a robust selection of drugs:

Psilocybin mushrooms and a pound of pot were also found in the vehicle.

Wondie told investigators that the Capitol Hill apartment belonged to a family member. Executing search warrants at the 12th Ave S Beacon Hill apartment where he lived, investigators later the same day turned up more drugs and a pill press machine:

Investigators say the handgun found at Wondie’s apartment was not the murder weapon they were searching for that had been matched by ballistic imaging to a homicide. Investigators say Wondie told them that handgun had been stolen from him during a West Seattle gunpoint robbery two years ago.

Investigators say Wondie denied involvement in the homicide but said he was in near constant fear of being robbed and admitted to being a prolific drug dealer around Capitol Hill and Central Seattle. “Wondie described his business as predominantly pill-based,” though he also sells cocaine and marijuana,” his charging document reads. Wondie also said that he “habitually distributed narcotics in various areas and parks around Capitol Hill.”

Wondie was arrested and charged in the home robbery of a medical marijuana patient on Capitol Hill in 2010 but was acquitted by a jury, according to King County Court records.

According to the report, Wondie’s sales efforts had shifted earlier this year to an alley near 12th and Alder where a witness described seeing the transactions play out:

Investigators write that the production of counterfeit Xanax can be a highly lucrative business with dealers paying about $20,000 for enough “Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient” to produce millions of dollars in pills to sell on the street.

The informant in Wondie’s case was busted in October during a Homeland Security-led sweep of “pharmaceutical traffickers operating in Seattle.” The informant, investigators say, wasn’t found with any Xanax at the time of his arrest — he said he was planning to rob his customers. In a cooperation deal with investigators, the dealer told Homeland Security agents about the fake Xanax business and that he was helping Wondie build a pill press machine but that a key part had been seized at customs.

Wondie has been charged with possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute and possession of a firearm in furtherance of drug trafficking. At a Tuesday detention hearing, a U.S. Western District Court judge ruled Wondie to be released on bond under court supervision. Wondie has not yet entered a plea to the charges.

 

PLEASE HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE!
Subscribe to CHS to help us pay writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month.

 

 
Subscribe and support CHS Contributors -- $1/$5/$10 per month

7 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
LandrewS
LandrewS
5 years ago

Same guy got busted selling Weed, Oxycontin and Xanax pills – and beating up his customer – eight years ago:

Pot Patient Robbed In Home Invasion On Capitol Hill
By Jonah Spangenthal-Lee 5/27/2010

Until life-long dealers like this guy are actually forced to suffer some consequences, we are going to have an Opioid crisis, ruined families, high crime rates and overdose deaths.

CantStandCaucasity
CantStandCaucasity
5 years ago
Reply to  LandrewS

FIrst of all, you don’t understand that punishment doesn’t work. If it did, people would stop using the drug trade to make income.

That home invasion was never a conviction, so quit using allegations synonymously with convictions. Unless you were his customer, you have no proof of him beating up anyone. You’re just another white dude who’s bitter, and senile. If you’re going to blame dealers on the drug problem, next time include doctors, and other healthcare practitioners, or better yet, include your damn government as they’re to blame for upholding a system that disenfranchises people to where they use illegal activity for subsistence. Get a fucking grip, or pack your shit and live in the forest. If you’re not a solution, you’re definitely a part of the problem.

p
p
5 years ago

CantStandCaucasity = Another criminal-enabling loser excusing violent drug dealers who ruin people’s lives

LandrewS
LandrewS
5 years ago

Equating drug dealers (who kill people) with doctors (who try to keep people healthy and alive) is a pretty hilarious stretch.

With your defense of criminal culture, you only help doom disenfranchised people to a permanent state of failure.

Blaming every single person under the sun – except the perpetrator – has never helped anybody. Ever. Unless, of course, you consider modern day Venezuela a successful experiment.

Fairly Obvious
Fairly Obvious
5 years ago
Reply to  LandrewS

Until life-long dealers like this guy are actually forced to suffer some consequences, we are going to have an Opioid crisis, ruined families, high crime rates and overdose deaths.

The other half of the equation is the overprescription of opiods for pain by doctors, encouraged by pharmaceutical companies. This is causing a significant amount of people to become addicted to opiods via prescription who otherwise may not have ever dabbled in illicit drugs. Once their prescriptions finally run out and the doctors won’t prescribe them more, they turn to the illicit dealers like this piece of trash.

Unfortunately, we seem to be only focusing on the dealers. Our federal government has shown zero willingness to stem the flow of prescription opiods and in fact made it virtually impossible to go after pharmaceutical companies with recent regulation.

LandrewS
LandrewS
5 years ago
Reply to  Fairly Obvious

“Once their prescriptions finally run out and the doctors won’t prescribe them more, they turn to the illicit dealers”

I will help you finish that sentence correctly: “Once their prescriptions finally run out they should heed their doctor’s advice and stop taking them”

Fairly Obvious
Fairly Obvious
5 years ago
Reply to  Fairly Obvious

The AMA would like to hear your theory and evidence that opioid addicts can stop at will.