Rock Hill man sentenced to 27 years in prison for running secret fentanyl lab in North Carolina laundry room

A Rock Hill man who ran a secret fentanyl pill lab in a North Carolina laundry room has been sentenced to 27 years in prison, federal prosecutors said.

Quavion Maurice Pickett, 30, trafficked the fentanyl pills in the Fayetteville, North Carolina, area before being arrested in South Carolina in October 2022, said Michael Easley, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina.

Police seized more than 6.5 pounds of fentanyl and counterfeit pills stamped to look like another opioid, as well as a pill press, from the Fayetteville home where Pickett was staying at the time in 2022, Easley said in a news release.

Pickett was later arrested by drug agents in South Carolina and seized over 19,000 pills and other contraband related to the drug trade.

According to records, Pickett pleaded guilty in April before being sentenced in federal court in Wilmington, North Carolina.

“These pills are manufactured without any quality control. The narcotics are mixed in plastic containers and store-bought mixers by ruthless, money-hungry drug dealers who are only interested in money and have no regard for human life,” Easley said. “Never take a pill bought on the street or online that has not been prescribed to you by a real doctor. They are gambling with your life.”

Fentanyl is about 50 times more potent than heroin and is responsible for overdose deaths locally and across the country, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and authorities in the Carolinas. According to law enforcement, fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, is cheap, easy to obtain, highly addictive and deadly.

In York County, near Rock Hill, drug agents seized over 60 pounds of fentanyl from a separate clandestine drug lab near Lake Wylie in October 2022. Five men from the area have pleaded guilty in the case in federal court in South Carolina and await sentencing to 10 years to life in prison.