A British man who was living in Vancouver has been convicted in the United States after an RCMP investigation into a dark web drug trafficking network dubbed “Canada1” led to the overdose deaths of two U.S. navy sailors.
Paul Anthony Nicholls, 47, was convicted Jan. 29 of one count each of conspiracy to import and conspiracy to distribute controlled substances resulting in death following a jury trial in Georgia, RCMP said in a statement issued Thursday.
Nicholls was living in Vancouver in 2017, the year the servicemen died, but police said he overstayed his visa and was removed following his arrest in 2018.
A statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Georgia issued on the day of his conviction said Nicholls faces a minimum mandatory sentence of 20 years in prison, but he could be sentenced to life.
“There is no parole in the federal system,” the office said.
In October 2017, Cmdr. Sarah Self-Kyler, a spokeswoman for the U.S. navy’s Submarine Forces Command, said investigators suspected drug overdoses killed the two men at a home near Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base.
The men were identified as Petty Officer 1st Class Brian Jerrell and Petty Officer 2nd Class Ty Bell. Jerrell’s body was found in Bell’s home.
“This is shocking news and something we’re concerned about,” Self-Kyler said at the time.
Jerrell had been assigned to a training facility on the submarine base, while Bell was a crew member on the submarine USS Wyoming. Both sailors were sonar technicians who had become friends during a previous assignment under a different command, Self-Kyler said.
RCMP said Nicholls’s conviction stems from an investigation into an online drug trafficking network that was based in British Columbia’s Lower Mainland, with a dozen Mounties testifying at the four-day trial.
While RCMP submitted charges to the Public Prosecution Service of Canada, the Mounties said the U.S. Attorney’s Office assumed conduct of the case “due to the severity of the offences” with the deaths occurred in its jurisdiction.
Nicholls conspired with at least one other person to run the trafficking organization on a now-defunct dark web marketplace called “Dream Market,” the U.S. office said.
Its statement said investigators identified Nicholls “routinely interacting” with a conspirator and taking numerous packages bearing the logo for a shell company called “East Van ECO Tours” to be sent via Canada Post.
After weeks of surveillance, it said investigators intercepted more than 40 packages containing “dangerous fentanyl analogues in both nasal spray and powder form.”
A search of Nicholls’ home and the home of an alleged co-conspirator turned up receipts with tracking numbers for thousands of packages, including two sent to Kingsland, Ga., where the two U.S. submariners died.
The sailors died about four days apart, the U.S. office said.
Expert witness testimony valued fentanyl analogues seized from the home at US$24 million, with enough substances to kill 375,000 people, it said.
The other alleged conspirator has not yet been tried on his indictment, it said.
“Drug traffickers who operate on the dark web often believe their crimes are detached from real-world consequences. This conviction proves that couldn’t be further from the truth,” Jae W. Chung, special agent in charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration Atlanta field division, said in the statement.
— With files from The Associated Press
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 5, 2026.
Brenna Owen, The Canadian Press
