LOS ANGELES — This is an official press release from the U.S. Department of Justice (USAO - California, Central), published as received.
LOS ANGELES – A Glendale man was sentenced today to 57 months in federal prison for conspiring to distribute various drugs including cocaine, methamphetamine, methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), and ketamine on darknet marketplaces in exchange for cryptocurrency.
Davit Avalyan, 36, was sentenced by United States District Judge Percy Anderson.
Avalyan pleaded guilty in October 2025 to one count of conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute cocaine, methamphetamine, ketamine, and MDMA. He is the last of four defendants to be sentenced in this case.
From September 2018 to February 2025, Avalyan conspired with co-defendants Hrant Gevorgyan, 36, of Glendale, Hayk Grigoryan, 36, a.k.a. “Hayk Greg,” of Glendale, and Gurgen Nersesyan, 44, a.k.a. “Guro Tiko,” of Sherman Oaks, to distribute illegal narcotics.
The conspiracy maintained darknet drug vendor accounts, including JoyInc, LaFarmacia, WhiteDoc, JanesAddiction, DaShop, WhiteRepublic, Tomorowland, PlanetHollywood, DopeValley, and Major2Minor. These accounts operated on several darknet marketplaces and sold methamphetamine, cocaine, MDMA, and ketamine to customers across the United States in exchange for cryptocurrency.
The conspiracy regularly fulfilled multiple small-scale drug orders through darknet vendor accounts by packaging narcotics into parcels and depositing those parcels at post offices and postal mailboxes in Los Angeles County and elsewhere.
JoyInc is believed to have been operating since at least 2018 and is one of the most prolific methamphetamine and cocaine distributors to ever operate on the darknet.
On January 5, Judge Anderson sentenced Grigoryan to 10 years in federal prison. Nersesyan was sentenced on January 12 to 43 months in federal prison. On February 9, Judge Anderson sentenced Gevorgyan to 24 months in federal prison.
The Justice Department established the FBI-led JCODE (Joint Criminal Opioid Darknet Enforcement) team to lead and coordinate government efforts to detect, disrupt, and dismantle major criminal enterprises reliant on the darknet for trafficking opioids and other illicit narcotics, along with identifying and dismantling their supply chains.
This case was worked jointly with the FBI, the United States Postal Inspection Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Costa Mesa Police Department, and IRS Criminal Investigation, with assistance from the Los Angeles Police Department.
This prosecution is part of the Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF) initiative established by Executive Order 14159, Protecting the American People Against Invasion. The HSTF is a whole-of-government partnership dedicated to eliminating criminal cartels, foreign gangs, transnational criminal organizations, and human smuggling and trafficking rings operating in the United States and abroad. Through historic interagency collaboration, the HSTF directs the full might of United States law enforcement towards identifying, investigating, and prosecuting the full spectrum of crimes committed by these organizations, which have long fueled violence and instability within our borders.
Assistant United States Attorneys James A. Santiago of the Transnational Organized Crime Section and James E. Dochterman of the Asset Forfeiture and Recovery Section prosecuted this case.
