A Raleigh man has been sentenced to over eight years in federal prison for trafficking fentanyl in Eastern North Carolina. Joshua Vines, 40, admitted to conspiring to distribute more than 400 grams of fentanyl and pleaded guilty earlier this year.
Court records and evidence presented at sentencing revealed that on October 25, 2023, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents were conducting surveillance on a vehicle registered to co-defendant Nigel Gray. The car was parked outside a Dollar General in Elizabeth City when a passenger and co-defendant, Omar Cardenas, exited and entered another vehicle. Both vehicles then left the area.
Law enforcement later stopped the vehicle driven by Vines in Nashville, NC. During the stop, Vines contacted Gray by phone to ask for the car’s registration information. A trained K-9 alerted officers to the vehicle, prompting a search. Inside, officers found approximately 30,000 pills containing fentanyl or para-fluorofentanyl with a combined weight of 1.5 kilograms and an additional kilogram of fentanyl powder. Vines had texted Gray that they were being detained and requested consent to search the vehicle. The group planned to distribute the drugs in the Raleigh area.
Gray and Cardenas have already been sentenced in federal court for their roles in the conspiracy.
Vines has prior felony convictions for discharging a weapon into an occupied vehicle, trafficking heroin, and trafficking cocaine by transportation.
“Daniel P. Bubar, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina made the announcement after sentencing by U.S. District Judge James C. Dever III.” HSI, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigations, the Raleigh Police Department, the Nashville Police Department, the Pitt County Sheriff’s Office, and the Greenville Regional Drug Task Force investigated the case while Assistant U.S. Attorneys Timothy Severo and Katherine Englander prosecuted it.
