Amarjit Singh Grewal sold drugs to an undercover police officer.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: An Indian American man from Lancaster, Pennsylvania has been sentenced to nearly three years behind bars for illegally selling special drugs that he designed himself.
Amarjit Singh Grewal was sentenced on Thursday to 33 months behind bars for distributing MDPV, a Schedule I controlled substance most commonly found in bath salts. Grewal (34) pleaded guilty to charges that he was unlawfully selling MDPV to people in Lancaster and its surrounding areas.
According to the US District Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, Grewal confessed to buying MDPV in large quantities, along with synthetic marijuana. He would then re-package the drugs with labels such as “spice” or “potpourri,” and then sell them in convenience stores, gas stations, and mini-marts around the area.
Grewal was caught in March of 2012, when he was in the parking lot of a local gas station looking to sell off some of his product. He sold nearly half a kilogram of bulk bath salts to an individual, who turned out to be an undercover police officer.
In handing down Grewal’s sentence last week, US District Court Judge Yvette Kane also ordered that Grewal forfeit $500,000 to the US government. This sum will also be the responsibility of Kulwinder Singh Grewal, the co-defendant in the case whose sentencing is coming up.
Lancaster Online reports that two others were also involved with the case, albeit in far less capacity: Jaspreet Singh and Steven Accardi. Singh was able to arrange a plea deal that got several charges against him dropped, and is now serving a prison term of more than five months. Accardi’s charges were all dismissed.
The case against Grewal and his conspirators was a combined effort by the Drug Enforcement Agency’s (DEA) Harrisburg Resident Office, the FDA’s Office of Criminal Investigations, the Pennsylvania State Police, the Dauphin County Drug Task Force, and “other county and local law enforcement agencies.”