Troopers make drug bust posing as FedEx delivery

WASILLA — Alaska State Troopers intercepted a box containing 129 pills of an oft-abused prescription painkiller intended for a Wasilla man.

An affidavit trooper investigator Mike Ingram filed in the case against Vladimir Bochkovsky, 28, says the package, addressed to a Mikey Sheeby, was sent overnight via FedEx from Everett, Wash., to an apartment on Heather Way. The Mat-Su Narcotics Team intercepted the package at the FedEx in Wasilla on July 2 and a drug-sniffing dog was brought in to confirm it contained drugs.

Acting on the confirmation from the dog’s nose, troopers seized the box and obtained a search warrant. They opened the box and found the drugs, all of them 80-milligram Oxycontin pills with a street value of $1 per milligram, which amounts to $10,320 worth of painkillers.

Ingram reports troopers took most of the drugs out and put an electronic beacon in the box, then on Tuesday had one of their own pose as a FedEx driver and deliver the package. The disguised trooper got the person taking possession of the package, who turned out to be Bochkovsky, to show his driver’s license.

Five minutes after delivery, the beacon in the package let troopers know it had been opened, Ingram says in his affidavit.

“Investigators converged on the residence at about (10:23 a.m.) and found the now-opened FedEx package in a bedroom that was being occupied by Vladimir Bochkovsky,” he says.

Bochkovsky admitted to taking the package and opening it but said he didn’t know anything about the drugs inside. He told troopers he had recently moved back to Alaska from Washington.

Ingram wrote that troopers interviewed Bochkovsky’s brother, who was also living at the apartment. The brother said nobody named Mikey Sheeby lives there, but his brother sometimes refers to himself as Mike.

Ingram also says in his affidavit that there is no reason for a person to have that much Oxycontin delivered to a home unless there’s an intent to sell it.

Bochkovsky was jailed at the Mat-Su Pre-Trial Facility on $25,000 bail. He has made one court appearance, at which he was assigned a public defender and not asked to enter a plea. Jail records Friday afternoon showed he was still there.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.