In U.S. District Court on Friday, 36-year-old Christopher Schanck of Pittsburgh pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute 100 kilograms or more of marijuana and conspiracy to launder the proceeds of marijuana trafficking in a scheme that targeted western Pennsylvania college campuses.
According to federal authorities, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the internal revenue Services’s Criminal Investigation unit, Pittsburgh police, and Indiana Borough Police conducted a multi-year investigation that determined that from 2012 to 2017, Schanck and his co-conspirators arranged for marijuana to be supplied from the west coast and mailed to the Pittsburgh area. The report specifically mentions IUP as one of the targeted universities. Schanck conspired to distribute between 100 and 400 kilograms of pot and to launder about $258,404 in proceeds from the sales.
Schanck will be sentenced on July 25th. He could get a sentence of five to forty years in prison and fines totaling as much as $5 million.
