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 that resulted in the overdose deaths of two U.S. Navy servicemen.
The RCMP statement says 47-year-old Paul Anthony Nicholls 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.
The Mounties say Nicholls was living in Vancouver in 2017, the year the servicemen died, but 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 says Nicholls faces a minimum mandatory sentence of 20 years in prison, but he could be sentenced to life with “no parole in the federal system.”
The conviction stems from an RCMP investigation into an online drug trafficking network that was based in British Columbia’s Lower Mainland, with a dozen Mounties testifying at Nicholls’s trial.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office says a search of Nicholls’ home turned up receipts with tracking numbers for thousands of packages, including two sent to Kingsland, Ga., where the two U.S. Navy submariners died of overdoses in October 2017.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 5, 2026.
The Canadian Press
