Mexican man pleads guilty to selling suicide drug online for years
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 [February 22, 2025]
By Brett Rowland | The Center Square
(The Center Square) – A Mexican man pleaded guilty Friday to illegally
importing the drug pentobarbital for use in committing suicide after
officials found some of his clients dead.
Daniel Gonzalez-Munguia, also known as "Alejandro Vasquez," 41, of
Puebla, Mexico, pleaded guilty in federal court in Chicago to one count
of importing a controlled substance into the United States. He faces up
to 20 years in federal prison.
U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis set sentencing for Sept. 9.
Pentobarbital is a short-acting barbiturate rarely used outside of
hospitals. The drug is used in animal euthanasia, assisted suicide and
some U.S. executions.
Gonzalez-Munguia admitted in a plea agreement that from 2012 to 2021, he
operated an online drug business that sold and distributed bottles of
Pentobarbital to hundreds of people in the U.S. and throughout the
world, including people in Illinois. Many of the buyers consumed the
product and died, according to the plea agreement. Gonzalez-Munguia
admitted that he initially shipped bottles of the drug directly from
Mexico and in the manufacturer’s packaging but thereafter disguised it
as a cosmetic product and used intermediaries to transport it into the
U.S. before shipping it to customers around the world.
Homeland Security Investigations had been looking into the smuggling of
suicide drugs since March 2016 after finding pentobarbital in an
intercepted package from Mexico that contained two pre-packaged, 100
milliliter medicine bottles, each labelled as "pentobarbital sodium"
sold under the trade name "Pisabental." Pentobarbital is sold
commercially in Mexico for euthanizing animals. The intercepted package,
which also contained the anti-nausea medicine metoclopramide, was headed
to a hotel in Libertyville, Illinois, about 50 miles from Chicago.
Agents tracked down the man in the hotel room. He told agents he was
depressed after his wife told him she wanted a divorce and police served
him with an order of protection from his wife. He said that he had
ordered a suicide manual online. The man, who was not identified in the
indictment, told agents he no longer wanted to commit suicide. The
suicide manual contained a Yahoo! email address for a person who could
provide drugs for suicide. The man at the hotel, a licensed pharmacist,
had emailed the Yahoo! address seeking pentobarbital. He eventually
wired $644 to Mexico for two bottles of pentobarbital, according to the
indictment.
Investigators later linked the Yahoo! address to Gonzalez-Munguia.
In one email exchange with the Yahoo! address, the despondent man in the
hotel was told the amount was "enough to reliably get a peaceful exit
for two people."
Another email was more specific: "The product is drinkable, not
injectable despite it says injectable in the bottle, remember that this
product is made for animals mainly. Take 2 pills each 12 hours before
the day you are planning to drink the product, then 2 more pills half
hour before, mix the content in orange juice or even an alcoholic drink
and drink all at once. The effect takes 20 minutes to 30 minutes and you
will feel sleepy, this is the only effect you will feel in your body.
Please erase all emails between you and me and dispose the bottles at a
safe place."
Prosecutors said Gonzalez-Munguia operated an online business to sell
pentobarbital to people in the U.S. and throughout the world who were
contemplating suicide.
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The Everett McKinley Dirksen United States Courthouse in Chicago on
Tuesday, April 5, 2023.
By Brett Rowland | The Center Square
During the investigation, law enforcement located mail parcels that
appear to have been shipped out of Mexico by Gonzalez-Munguia.
Authorities in the U.S. and several foreign countries conducted
well-being checks and recovered pentobarbital from people who
admitted to being despondent and ordering the suicide drug online
from email addresses operated by Gonzalez-Munguia, according to the
indictment and a criminal complaint previously filed in the case.
Law enforcement offered assistance to those people. In other
instances, people who bought pentobarbital via the email addresses
were found dead, including people in the Chicago area and several
other states and countries, according to the indictment.
A 29-year-old from California who paid $700 for three bottles of
pentobarbital was later found dead in a hotel room in La Mesa,
California, in April 2016. The cause of death remains under
investigation, according to the indictment. However, a search
recovered a handwritten note bearing the name "Daniel Gonzalez-Munguia"
and a blank Western Union form.
A 52-year-old from Boulder, Colorado, who paid $720 for three
bottles, was found dead in 2015. The Boulder County Coroner's Office
ruled the person had committed suicide and found the cause of death
to be an overdose of pentobarbital, according to the indictment.
Undercover agents later bought pentobarbital directly from Gonzalez-Munguia.
Pentobarbital is a Schedule II drug in the U.S. It has turned up
other drug smuggling activities and is sometimes marketed as illicit
drugs such as fentanyl. In 2021, the American Veterinary Medical
Association reported a shortage of pentobarbital in 2021, advising
members about alternatives at the time. The drug has also been used
in executions. Most U.S. executions previously relied on a
three-drug cocktail for executions, but when those drugs became
difficult to obtain, several states switched to a single drug:
Pentobarbital. When former U.S. Attorney General William Barr
brought back the death penalty in 2019, the plan was for the Federal
Bureau of Prisons to use pentobarbital, according to The BMJ, a
medical journal and federal records.
Authorities have found pentobarbital in other smuggling operations.
In 2019, a U.S. Coast Guard team boarded a boat off the coast of
Oregon and found 28 seven-gallon jugs containing liquid
methamphetamine along with plastic-wrapped bricks of pentobarbital,
according to court records and Coast Guard reports.
Earlier this year, DEA agents found 11 pounds of pentobarbital when
they busted a cartel-linked illicit drug operation in Texas. In that
case, the dealers marketed the short-acting barbiturate
pentobarbital as heroin, according to a DEA spokesperson. Agents
seized other more common illicit drugs in larger quantities during
the multi-year investigation. Among them: 1,212 pounds of meth, 548
pounds of cocaine, 74 pounds of heroin, and 22,600 fentanyl-laced
pills. The spokesperson said the seizure of pentobarbital was
"uncommon."
The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is available 24/7 by phone and
online. |
