‘Strong enough to kill an elephant’: Delaware fentanyl dealer convicted after state’s biggest bust

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Dwayne Fountain styled himself as a serious and savvy businessman who sold illicit street drugs supplied by a Mexican cartel and other sources: fentanyl, heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine.

Fountain also cut some drugs with xylazine, a horse tranquilizer also known as “tranq” that puts users in a zombie-like state — their heads bowed as they wobble while standing — and can cause serious skin infections.

The 54-year-old Delaware man lived in Middletown, Delaware, where he kept a kilogram press to put drugs back into “brick” form after they were mixed into the form he sold to his network of distributors throughout the state. He stashed the dope at an apartment several miles away, in Bear.

But a few years ago, according to court records examined by WHYY News that detail Fountain’s operation, federal and local investigators using wiretaps and other tools began tracking his shipments from Mexico to California to Scranton, Pennsylvania, and finally to Delaware.

Prosecutors say that in one intercepted conversation, Fountain said he knew his drugs could kill users, and in one text told his foreign suppliers he wanted fentanyl “strong enough to kill an elephant.” In recent years, fentanyl was found in 83% of Delaware’s overdose deaths.

Drug deals went down at the Grotto Pizza and Green Turtle restaurants in Dover and other locations, authorities said in court records. The agents conducted a series of undercover buys from members of Fountain’s ring, and in May 2023 obtained a search warrant for a handful of locations. They conducted raids and seized what federal prosecutors say was the largest amount of ultra-lethal fentanyl ever seized in Delaware.

That haul included more than 10.5 kilograms of fentanyl, plus more than 3.5 kilos of cocaine and nearly 3 kilos of heroin. A kilo is 2.2 pounds.

The agents also seized nearly a half-pound of pure meth, and more than a half-pound of xylazine, as well as body armor, guns and nearly $100,000 in cash.

The drawer of one raided home contained hundreds of white packages of drug doses stamped with an image of a panda wearing red shorts and the words “ONE DAB.” Court documents provide further details of what agents found.

The probe led to a federal drug trafficking indictment against Dwayne Fountain, and related drug charges against his cousin Martin Fountain, William Warren and Durell Patton. The latter three pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Wilmington and await sentencing.

Dwayne Fountain, who has been held without bail since his arrest, fought the charges. Last month, after a weeklong trial in Wilmington, a jury found him guilty of several drug dealing crimes, including conspiracy to distribute controlled substances. He was acquitted of firearms charges. When he’s sentenced later this year, Fountain faces 10 years to life in prison.

Fountain had been convicted of cocaine dealing in the mid-1990s in federal court in Pennsylvania and was sentenced then to 10 and a half years in prison.

Dawyne Fountain’s defense attorney, Todd Fiore, would not comment on the current case.

Jennifer Welsh, the assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted Dwayne Fountain and his deputies, and has handled several major drug cases, said he tailored his drug concoctions and their strengths to meet the demands of users throughout areas of Delaware, and was trying to make major inroads in the Sussex County market.

“Mr. Fountain was always asking his supplier for stronger and stronger and stronger fentanyl,” Welsh said in an interview. “When Mr. Fountain would get the fentanyl, he would add adulterants like xylazine and others. He had a recipe for fentanyl in his house, sort of what to add to it to make his particular product. After he would add the adulterants, he would repackage it and distribute it out throughout the state.”

Welsh said that during one call captured by authorities, Fountain said, “We all have stuff that could kill somebody. You just got to mix it right” to both attract customers and prevent fatal overdoses.

Thomas Hodnett of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said the bottom line is that criminals like Fountain must be stopped to save lives.

“Individuals such as Dwayne Fountain who distribute fentanyl are poisoning our communities,” Hodnett said.

Welsh said she realizes that despite arrests and convictions, the flow of drugs keeps coming, but stressed that convicting major traffickers like Fountain sends the message that big-time dealing in dangerous drugs leads to long prison terms.

“The importance from my perspective is, first of all, every large amount of fentanyl that we seize is drugs that are going to be burned at the DEA lab rather than going into someone’s body and potentially actually killing them,” Welsh said.”

“And if somebody ends up subject, like here, to a large mandatory sentence for distributing drugs like this, the hope is that [other dealers will] think twice before they sell drugs that so easily kill people.”