Читать книгу Guilty Til' Proven Innocent - Roger W Upchurch - Страница 7

If you do not take a risk, you will go nowhere.

In late 2009, a friend of mine named Doug whom I met while in the mortgage business, was my lender rep. He called me one day and said he had a business opportunity that he would like to discuss with me over breakfast the next morning. I said sure as I am always open to new adventures and making money. The next morning, we met for breakfast. He said that his brother, Brad had a recipe to make synthetic marijuana, and he called K2. He said that this product is legal and gives you the same feeling as the actual thing. He said that I was a good marketer and salesperson and thought I could do really well with this product. I told him I would do some research and get back to him. When I got home researched the product, and I could not find anything about it being illegal.

I called him and said I am in and I think we can do well. I agreed to get some sales going, and I believed it was a good product that would become in high demand. We agreed to a deal, and for his brother to send us some product to begin. His brother was sending us the product in bulk, in bags containing a kilo which is 1.2 pounds. The K2 names were already determined which was Summit, Blonde, Blue, Citron, and a couple of others. Summit was the strongest and Citron was the weakest. The strongest gives you more of a high and of course, is the most expensive. The first product we received from Brad was called K2 Summit" We ordered some aluminum bags, printed some labels, bought a set of digital scales, and, well we were in business! I started working on a marketing plan. At that time, I did not know what the ingredients were, but I had to know. I learned that the ingredient that gave you the "high" was a chemical powder imported - from China and the first of the powders was JW18.

That chemical was mixed with herbs bought from a few different places within the country. We could use different herbs for each product, such as Damiana, Lavender, and many others. Summit was the best seller, while citrus was the least popular in sales, and of course, that makes sense. The amount of chemical used determined the strength of "high" you would experience. The various herbs we used did not affect the high but would give unique flavors and appearance. You would then roll it and smoke it like the actual thing which everybody knew. On the label was “Not for Human Consumption” sure that is going to stop people from smoking it.

Soon after, I created a website called K24U2.com where I advertised all the products available. I printed some flyers and sent them out to a great many convenience stores, tobacco shops, head shops etc, I opened a checking account and a PayPal account, as well. We named the Company Driftwood Distributors. I only tried the product two or three times and it sure worked, I thought I never would stop laughing. I smoked marijuana little when I was younger, and I remember this new product giving me the same kind of "experience" as the real thing. A mellow feeling, nothing violent, just make me laugh. I gave some free samples to friends if they wanted to try it, and all their feedback was totally positive. They said it was just like real marijuana. I also later discovered that this product does not show up on urine tests — which, as you can imagine, made this product more attractive.

The website was working well - and just within a few days I was getting orders and seeing deposits in my checking account. The online orders were mostly individuals buying small amounts but getting more every few days. It was not long until I started getting calls from stores interested in stocking the products.

I felt like I was starting to go crazy! The business was generating about $10,000 a week on the website alone and much more from the store orders. The problem was that I physically could not handle all that by myself. Doug said his brother Greg would come to INDY and find a warehouse, and we could start manufacturing products there. They would hire a staff of employees, and a sales team and I agreed to work with them in the capacity of a "Head of Sales" and whatever else needed to be done. In a few short weeks, we had hired the staff, including a secretary and all the employees needed to make and sell the products. Greg lived in St. Louis, and Doug lived in INDY. Greg came over about three days a week and was really tiring of the commute. Early in 2011, Greg said he wanted to retire, and he asked me if I wanted to buy them out. I did not have to think about it long and soon agreed to buy them out to the tune of ONE MILLION DOLLARS.

The FED's were noticing K2. They were banning chemical JWH18. So, we would use another similar JWH20. Unfortunately, I did not have Greg and Doug sign a non—compete for agreement. So, you know what happened next, right? That is right, they set up their own manufacturing facility in St Louis started selling the exact same products, and overnight they became my competition! I treated my client's right, so I did not think I would lose business.

Each time a chemical from China was banned, the Chinese would make a slight change to its composition and it would suddenly be "legal" again with different nomenclature. I had committed myself fully to this venture, and it was getting bigger by the week. I was employing good people and running the business completely above—board. I found a lab company that I liked and started using them to test our products, to ensure they did not contain any banned substances We tested out products and did this randomly and never had a banned product to sell or sold any banned products.

As more news was coming about the banned products, I was becoming worried since the business was slowing down, and that it could stop altogether. Of course, it just slows for a short time as the demand was there. There was a clause in the agreement with Greg and Doug that said if the government started banning the foundational ingredients for the products, then the sale and contract would be null—in-void. So, I argued that it was too scary, and I was closing this effectively voided our agreement. I had paid them about two—hundred thousand dollars. I was slowing down, the Sloan's were building up, and of course, taking a lot of my customers. I did stop manufacturing K2 as it was getting such a bad name and many people were making it called K2 and you did not know what was in it. It was getting a lot of bad publicity on local and national news and they were also calling it “Spice”. Here is an article and is why I stopped calling my products K2.

Seller of synthetic marijuana sentenced to 7 years in prison, putting rat poison in it.

CHICAGO (AP) — The operator of a Chicago convenience store who sold illegal synthetic marijuana laced with rat poisoning was sentenced Thursday to seven years in prison by a federal judge.

Fouad Masoud pleaded guilty in September to drug conspiracy for selling the illegal substance, sometimes called K2, from his West Side store. In sentencing Masoud, 49, U.S. District Judge Manish Shah said the emergence of ``greedy black-market profiteers” selling K2 likely contributed to a public health crisis that included deaths.

``You didn’t know there was rat poison in it, but you also didn’t care what you were selling,” Shah said.

During the hearing, a victim testified he started urinating blood soon after smoking the synthetic pot he bought at Masoud’s store and was hospitalized. He says two years later he is still recovering from the after-effects of using the substance.

Prosecutors requested a 10-year prison sentence for Masoud, noting that over a 2 ½-year period beginning in 2015, customers lined up outside the store waiting for Masoud to arrive with the illegal substance.

Defense attorney Glenn Seiden argued his client should get a 3-year prison term, saying there was no link between the hospitalizations of synthetic marijuana users and the substance sold at Masoud’s store.

I decided to stop manufacturing in Indianapolis. I was always on the lookout for something new to jump into, just in case.

One of my employees there owned a recording studio business in his basement and he wanted to get bigger. And since I was closing the Spice business down, I had this big warehouse and was paid up a couple of months, so what to do. We decided to use the warehouse as a recording studio instead, helping Head (his nickname is Head) out and letting him become the head engineer.