Kevin Matthew McCray Guilty Of Trafficking In Largest Fentanyl Seizure in Bay County

PANAMA CITY, FL – A jury deliberated for only 7 minutes Wednesday before finding a Panama City man guilty of Trafficking in Fentanyl (more than 28 grams) after he mailed nearly 1,000 grams of the deadly drug here from California, State Attorney, Larry Basford, said.

Kevin Matthew McCray, 33, faces up to 30 years in prison, with a minimum-mandatory 25 years. Circuit Court Judge Brantley Clark set sentencing for Oct. 24.

Bay County Sheriff’s Office Special Investigations Division arrested McCray Dec. 6, 2022, hours after he got off his return flight from California where he had picked up about a kilo of fentanyl.

“This is just a huge amount of fentanyl and was a really unique case,” Sullivan said. “There is no doubt in my mind that this seizure by the Bay County Sheriff’s Office - by far the largest ever in our circuit – saved many lives.”

“To put that into context, in a hospital setting a typical fentanyl dose is 50 micrograms,” Sullivan continued. “The fentanyl kept off the streets by the Sheriff’s Office was enough to give almost every one of Florida’s 23 million residents a dose.”

It also was enough fentanyl to cause a fatal overdose for every resident of the 14th Judicial Circuit - with tens of thousands of doses to spare.

As part of a 2022 narcotics investigation, the Sheriff’s Office learned the defendant was in California to pick up about a kilo of fentanyl that he mailed back to a Panama City address. He was placed under surveillance after his return flight landed Dec. 6, 2022, and pulled over later that day for a traffic infraction.

During questioning, he admitted to traveling to California to pick up the drugs and mailing them back here.

Sullivan said the arrest, seizure, and successful prosecution of a defendant like McCray is a victory for everyone.

“Law enforcement has a lot of different tools to fight drugs and it’s not very effective when a lot of addicts are being arrested again and again because it doesn’t really stop the supply,” Sullivan said. “In this case law enforcement didn’t just go to the next step to arrest the dealer, they went all the way to the top and arrested the drug supplier,” he continued. “They went to the head of the snake.”

Basford thanked the Bay County Sheriff’s Office for its investigation that enabled it to track the drugs from California to Panama City and then make an arrest before it got into the hands of local dealers.