Spybar co-owner Dino Gardiakos sentenced to jail for smuggling ketamine in luggage

Dino Gardiakos, co-owner of SpyBar, was sentenced to six years for smuggling ketamine into the country via O’Hare International Airport.

Dino Gardiakos, the co-owner of Chicago’s infamous club, Spybar, has been formally charged and sentenced to six years in prison after pleading guilty to drug charges. Charged with smuggling ketamine through O’Hare International Airport in March of 2024, the judge served the sentence this past Tuesday. The 46-year-old club owner pleaded guilty to counts of manufacturing or delivering more than 100 grams of ketamine.

Prior to the trial, Gardiakos had no electronic monitoring while the case moved through the court system, and as a result, a small amount of time was reduced from his sentence. The incident occurred over two years ago, in March, when Gardiakos landed in Chicago after an overnight flight from London. In his luggage, he had carried roughly 14 pounds of ketamine, or six kilograms. In addition to the pounds of ketamine, he also had a small amount of ecstasy. 

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Investigators reported he said he had been coached on how to smuggle the drugs through customs, but did not report who had taught him. However, this is the second time he was unsuccessful in smuggling drugs across the border, where he had an earlier narcotics case in 2022. The club owner said he had acquired this round of the drugs in London. In 2022, his home in Chicago was raided after customs intercepted a package arriving from the United Kingdom that contained more than two pounds of ketamine. 

After searching his home, law enforcement discovered nearly $240,000 worth of drugs he had been stashing, either to sell or consume. Part of this stash included weed and mushrooms, along with cash and packaging materials. He pleaded guilty to a single possession charge and received two years of probation, but he does not seem to have learned his lesson after the second arrest in 2024 and the sentencing in 2026. 

Spybar said in a statement that its staff and management were “shocked and saddened,” adding that Gardiakos had not been involved in the club’s daily operations and that the venue still maintains a “zero-tolerance policy for illicit or illegal activities.”

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