WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Blake Kolessa is also known as “Draco,” the fictional Harry Potter character who tricked and hurt people to get what he wanted.
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His slithering ways while dealing with synthetic drugs in South Florida prompted the Drug Enforcement Administration to assign an undercover team to catch him.
“The DEA Southeast Laboratory revealed that the active ingredient in the substance sold by Kolessa was different than what Kolessa had represented to the undercover officers,“ a DEA special agent wrote in a criminal complaint’s affidavit, court records show.
After months of undercover transactions in West Palm Beach, DEA special agents accused Kolessa, 27, of possessing a controlled substance with intent to distribute.
On Dec. 10, in Miami federal court, U.S. District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks sentenced Kolessa, of Greenacres, to 180 months in prison and a five-year probation.
According to announcements Monday by federal prosecutors and the DEA, Kolessa admitted to endangering others' lives while selling thousands of pressed pills with metonitazene, N-desethyl isotonitazene, and methamphetamine.
According to the DEA’s 2024 National Drug Threat Assessment, the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels' network has been behind the shift from plant-based drugs like heroin and cocaine to dangerous Mexican-manufactured synthetics.