A 49-year-old Montreal man could spend the next century in a U.S. prison after being charged in an opioid trafficking probe.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office, Middle District of Florida, announced Tuesday that Sebastien Rollin has been charged by federal indictment with conspiracy to import protonitazene, distribution of protonitazene for importation into the United States and international promotional money laundering.

If convicted on all counts, Rollin faces a maximum penalty of 120 years in federal prison, the department said.

According to the indictment, Rollin, who lived in Montreal, is accused of arranging the sale of synthetic opioid pills disguised as oxycodone to the Tampa area.

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The indictment alleges Rollin sold more than 10,000 such pills on May 13, 2024, to an undercover officer and later sold 25,000 pills to an undercover officer on July 9, 2024.

Authorities allege Rollin accepted payment for these sales through cryptocurrency that was sent from an undercover cryptocurrency wallet in the Middle District of Florida to Canada.

In mid-July 2024, Rollin is accused of negotiating the sale of 300,000 synthetic opioid pills to the United States; however, the RCMP seized them. That same day, the RCMP executed search warrants at two clandestine laboratories in Quebec and seized millions of synthetic opioid pills, recipes for synthetic drugs and a firearm, the indictment notes.

The attorney’s office said in a news release that the Spanish National Police provided “critical assistance” in finding and arresting Rollin. He was extradited to the U.S. on Feb. 20.

“An indictment is merely a formal charge that a defendant has committed one or more violations of federal criminal law, and every defendant is presumed innocent unless, and until, proven guilty,” the attorney’s office said in a news release.

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