International drug network linked to Grand Forks teen's overdose

The drug death of a Grand Forks teenager sparked an investigation that's now being connected to an international online distribution of deadly drugs.

Valley News Live obtained the criminal complaint that links the powerful opiate from China, Portland and Grand Forks.

Before Bailey Henke died, he was with three friends. One of them was Ryan Jensen who investigators say sold all of them powdered fentanyl and heroin after he purchased it through an encrypted website called Evolution.

These underground sites are nearly impossible to find, but as Jensen was questioned by police after Henke's death, he gave them his personal account information for the underground site that led agents to the fentanyl purchase.

The man he bought it from was Brandon Hubbard out of Portland, Oregon.

A search warrant was then issued on Hubbard's Portland home
and after tracking him for weeks, Hubbard finally admitted to police that he sold over 400 grams of fentanyl on dark websites for more than a year.

He told agents he was a part of a large-scale network that would order from a source in Canada and receive packages from China.

Just to show you how complex and covered up this operation is, a business owner was in on this drug trafficking.

Hubbard had two shipments delivered to a business in Washington State, owned by Steven Locke, who was getting paid in powdered fentanyl.

Bringing it back to Grand Forks now; agents were able to trace these two shipments of fentanyl from China all the way to the packages Jensen received in Grand Forks, which killed Bailey Henke.

Grand Forks Police say they cannot comment on this case since the investigation is still ongoing.

This is a huge amount of fentanyl that the Portland man was handling, totaling nearly $2 million.

Grand Forks Police did tell us that they are still dealing with cases of fentanyl use in the region.