A young Instagram influencer who posed with stacks of cash, scantily clad women and high-powered guns has been locked up for drug dealing.

Wyatt Pasek amassed a big following online as 'Oxygod', a seemingly high rolling 22-year-old who liked to pose in baths full of money.

While he was boasting of his investment strategies through Instagram stories, Pasek was actually making his fortune by selling counterfeit pills laced with fentanyl.

Along with 22-year-old Duc Cao and 23-year-old Isaiah Suarez, Pasek ran a secret laboratory on the Balboa Peninsula in California where he processed thousands of the pills bought from a Chinese supplier.

The drugs were designed to look like prescription painkiller Oxycontin – an opioid widely taken across the USA – but actually contained fentanyl, CBS Local reported.

The incredibly strong synthetic opioid is easy to overdose on and claimed the lives of 20,000 people in the country in 2016.

After the drug racket was busted at the end of a six month investigation, in November Pasek pleaded guilty to charges of narcotics-trafficking conspiracy, being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm and money laundering.

On Monday Pasek, who lived in the penthouse of a Santa Ana high rise, was sentenced to 17 and a half years in prison.

Cao, of Orange County, and Suarez, of Newport Beach, received seven and three years respectively.

“The defendants in this case played a direct role in fueling this nation’s opioid crisis,” United States Attorney Nick Hanna said in a statement.

“The use of powerful drugs such as fentanyl in counterfeit pills intentionally made to look like less-lethal opioids demonstrates a complete disrespect for human life.”

At the time of their arrest authorities found a pill press lab with close to 100,000 fake oxycodone pills, six kilograms of fentanyl and hundreds of fake Xanax pills.

The drug racket proved to be very profitable for the group.

Having spent about a year selling the pills online, Pasek had amassed $21,000 (£17,100) in cash, a Silver Royal Offshore watch with diamonds, a gold and diamond Bitcoin necklace, two gold bars and thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency.

He was eager to show off his wealth under the Instagram nickname yung10x.

In one post he sits on a sofa surrounded by five women, pointing a gun at the camera other a table strewn with cash and a fancy looking bottle of alcohol.

The caption underneath reads: "Babe if she hip, Saint Laurent if she boujee."

Another has him sitting on the bonnet of a car holding money in his hands with a handkerchief covering his face.

Underneath he wrote: "I think the table's turning. I think you learn from the bridge you burn when you see it burning.

"I think you learn from the world when you see it turning."

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