Case Study: Using CDR & Cellebrite Extractions on a Narcotics Overdose Investigation

In April 2019, police officers responded to a fatal fentanyl overdose. The fatal overdose was treated as a homicide and immediately investigative steps were taken to identify the drug dealer responsible.

An analysis of the victim’s cell phone, recovered from the scene, revealed evidence of who he had been in contact with and purchased narcotics from. Using this information, law enforcement agents conducted a covert operation to purchase narcotics from the victim’s drug dealer. He was arrested upon his arrival at the agreed-upon location.

In this webinar, Darryl Valinchus discusses his work on this case and how he used CDR’s and Cellebrite extraction data from the victim and dealer’s phone inside GeoTime Enterprise to:

• Analyze, visualize, and quickly identify which handsets spoke to each other (and which handsets didn’t speak to each other to eliminate them from analysis) • Search the date, time, and content of the messages recovered from the phone • Establish that the dealer used a street name, and was the user of the “deal” phone • Prove arrangements were made for pickup and payment

As a result of this investigation, the suspect was convicted by a jury in November 2020, and sentenced to 16 years in prison and five years of post-release supervision.