Feds: Backyard fentanyl operation could have made 2.5M pills

By GENE JOHNSON
Associated Press

SEATTLE (AP) — The leaders of one of Washington state’s most significant illegal drug operations have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms. Bradley Woolard, of Arlington, was sentenced Tuesday to 20 years in prison — one of the longest federal drug sentences ever handed out in Western Washington. Authorities said he and his right-hand man, Anthony Pelayo, of Marysville, ordered enough supplies to make around 2.5 million fentanyl-laced pills before they got caught in 2018. Pelayo was sentenced to 15 years last week. The pair ran a backyard pill-pressing operation with fentanyl powder they ordered from China beginning in 2015 — just as the synthetic opioid was taking hold as a cheaper, more powerful and more deadly alternative to heroin.