A federal judge has denied a motion to set bond for one of eight Mid-Missouri residents indicted in April in a $6.6 million K2 conspiracy in Callaway County.
Raja Amer Nawaz, 41, of Columbia, will be detained in federal custody without bond until his trial.
Nawaz has been incarcerated since his arrest in April.
Some of the reasons the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri opposed granting bond for Nawaz included:
Nawaz sold synthetic cannabinoids that were ingested as drugs by customers who overdosed. In one instance on Sept. 15, 2014, while driving on Missouri Boulevard in Jefferson City, a customer smoked a K2 like product known as "Chill Out." Within seconds the customer passed out and lost control of his vehicle. His vehicle struck another vehicle and killed a
57-year-old woman.
Nawaz is an out-of-status alien.
Nawaz has sent approximately $451,000 in drug proceeds to Pakistan.
K2 is a synthetic cannabinoid, a class of designer drugs that are chemically different from the chemicals in cannabis but which are sold with claims that they give the effects of cannabis.
Jason Lee Houston, 36, Shawn Michael Browning, 25, Timothy Christopher Sandfort, 30, Brandon Derek Rader, 31, Joshua Adam Sheets, 30, and Dara Leanne Shirley, 30, all of Fulton; Casey Dewayne Miller, 32, of Columbia, and Billie L. Bruce, 36, of Jefferson City, were charged with Nawaz in a 14 count indictment, along with four individuals from the state of California.
The group is charged with mail fraud conspiracy for distributing K2 at various retail locations in Callaway County. The California residnts shipped the drug back to Mid-Missouri for sale hundreds of times.
The operation went on from Dec. 18, 2012, to July 16, 2015. The K2 was sold under various trade names as "incense," "aroma therapy" or "potpourri" that were "not for human consumption" when, in truth, these products were drugs intended for human consumption as a drug.
The drug was sold at Inscentives Resale, with one location in Auxvasse and two locations in Fulton. It was also sold at S&J Smoke Shop in Holts Summit.
There was no word on how soon any of the defendants could go to trial.