A previously law-abiding citizen who became involved in the drug trade; a professional rivalry that almost turned explosively violent. It’s not your next beloved fictional crime drama, a la Breaking Bad or Ozark. It’s also not the next true-crime documentary you can’t stop watching — at least, not yet. But at The New York Times, Maria Cramer has the details of a harrowing plot in Nebraska — one which involved the dark web, drug sales and a firebombing plot.
Cramer takes the reader to Auburn, Nebraska — the county seat of Nemaha County, located a little over an hour’s drive south of Omaha. Recently, federal prosecutors charged an Auburn pharmacist, Hyrum T. Wilson, of selling opioids via the dark web. According to prosecutors, Wilson did so in conjunction with a local drug dealer, William Anderson Burgamy IV. Then, Wilson’s stockpile of drugs ran low? What happened next ratcheted an already-unnerving situation into a higher gear:
… Mr. Wilson, 41, and a drug dealer who had been helping him run the illegal business hatched a plan to steal opioids from a rival pharmacy in Auburn and then firebomb it to cripple the business.
The FBI had been investigating this operation; when arrests were made on April 9, agents discovered “a notebook that referred to a plan called Operation Firewood,” as Cramer phrases it.
Adding one more layer of irony atop the whole situation? Wilson’s pharmacy was one of three taking part in a state pilot program to give away free naloxone nasal spray kits, used for the treatment of opioid overdoses. Truth may be stranger than fiction, but it can also be much, much bleaker.
Subscribe here for our free daily newsletter.
Thanks for reading InsideHook. Sign up for our daily newsletter and be in the know.
