Woman leads ‘Door Dash-style’ drug deliveries involving a puppy in CA, feds say
After a series of failed entrepreneurial pursuits, a California woman created what a Drug Enforcement Administration special agent called a “Door Dash-style” drug delivery service in the Bay Area.
Natalie Marie Gonzalez sold a variety of substances to students and “young professionals” in Silicon Valley, encouraging customers ordering off her digital menu to buy in bulk, according to court documents. She operated her service, called “The Shop,” over Signal, an encrypted messaging platform, prosecutors said.
Now, Gonzalez is going to prison over her business, which involved others hired as delivery drivers and a puppy used to make drug transactions appear more “casual,” according to prosecutors.
On April 18, a federal judge sentenced Gonzalez, 31, of Oakland, to four years and two months in prison on one count of conspiracy to distribute a mixture and substance containing methamphetamine, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California.
Her defense attorney, David W. Rizk, didn’t immediately return McClatchy News’ request for comment April 21.
Gonzalez pleaded guilty to the charge on Sept. 13 after prosecutors said she sold bulk orders of “Adderall” pills to an undercover DEA agent. However, the pills weren’t actually Adderall because they contained methamphetamine, according to prosecutors.
Adderall, a prescription ADHD and narcolepsy medication, includes a mixture of amphetamine/dextroamphetamine, not methamphetamine.
Ahead of Gonzalez’s sentencing, prosecutors argued that she ”enjoyed substantial advantages in life” after a “comfortable upbringing,” then went on to earn a degree from Stanford University.
From 2019 through 2021, Gonzalez set out to begin various business “ventures that ‘either flopped or dissipated due to the COVID-19 pandemic,’” prosecutors wrote in the government’s sentencing memorandum.
“Instead of using her intelligence and her social connections to obtain lawful employment or to continue striving to succeed as an entrepreneur, she created a Silicon Valley drug delivery service to enrich herself,” the sentencing memorandum says.
On Gonzalez’s behalf, Rizk wrote in a sentencing memorandum that her story is “highly unusual.”
He noted that Gonzalez was raised in an environment where recreational psychedelic drug use was common and she grew up “free-spirited and developed holistic interests” in the Colorado mountains. Rizk described her parents as hippies.
At Stanford, Gonzalez lived in a student co-op, where she explored the potential therapeutic benefits of psychedelic substances, according to Rizk.
Rizk wrote that she wanted to sell substances, mainly psychedelics, in a safe way in the hope of eventually earning enough money to buy land to establish a “spiritual retreat center.”
However, she became “increasingly misguided” when she started selling other substances, according to Rizk.
The DEA investigation
Gonzalez, according to prosecutors, ran her drug delivery service for about six months, from April through September 2023.
She employed three co-defendants, who are accused of delivering methamphetamine pills, cocaine and other substances to customers, prosecutors wrote in court filings.
Gonzalez required customers to spend at least $300 for drug deliveries in the Bay Area, or to receive their orders through the mail, according to prosecutors
As payment, Gonzalez accepted cash or cryptocurrency, prosecutors said.
On several occasions, Gonzalez sold methamphetamine to an undercover DEA agent posing as a customer, according to prosecutors.
While coordinating the sales over Signal, Gonzalez used the nickname “Soter,” prosecutors said.
Before one transaction in June 2023, Gonzalez messaged the undercover agent, saying one of her drivers would deliver drugs to them in a black vehicle, according to an affidavit written by a DEA special agent.
She also said the driver would be joined by “a cute black/white puppy,” court documents say.
“Please meet him at the car (black Honda Accord) with exact change and either: - Hop in for a short “Uber” ride around the block - Get your order through the window like Door Dash / Please keep money exchanges out of view of the window,” Gonzalez wrote in another message, according to court documents.
The next month, another batch of drugs was delivered to the undercover agent by a driver with a puppy, court documents say.
Before the sale, Gonzalez suggested to the undercover agent that, if they wanted, they could “play with the pup outside the car to cover up a casual swap :),” according to court documents.
That evening, the agent met with one of the drivers in the parking lot of a shopping center and played with the black and white-colored puppy, court documents say.
The driver gave the agent a white paper bag with orange pills inside a Ziploc bag in exchange for $2,500, according to court documents.
On Sept. 13, 2023, agents executed a search warrant at a home Gonzalez used for her drug delivery service, described as a “stash house,” by prosecutors.
There, the agents found fentanyl, cocaine, “orange fake Adderall pills” with methamphetamine and ketamine, according to prosecutors.
A letter to the court
Following Gonzalez’s arrest in the case, she gave up substance use, attended counseling and enrolled in a Master’s program at Stanford, according to Rizk. She also started working as a legislative aide for a Berkeley city council member, Rizk wrote.
Gonzalez, in a letter to the court before her sentencing hearing, wrote: “I take full responsibility for my actions and the harm I caused my codefendants, my community, my family, the integrity of the law, and myself.”
“It is deeply painful to look back and see how far I strayed from my own values, how I rationalized what was clearly wrong, and how I allowed myself to become disconnected from the person I truly want to be,” Gonzalez continued.
In handing Gonzalez a prison sentence, U.S. District Judge Trina L. Thompson also sentenced her to three years of supervised release.
One of her co-defendants has been sentenced to four years in prison, court records show.
This story was originally published April 21, 2025 at 3:55 PM with the headline "Woman leads ‘Door Dash-style’ drug deliveries involving a puppy in CA, feds say."
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