A gang leader who ran a multimillion-pound operation selling fake medicine on the dark web has been jailed.
The group – many of whom were from the same extended family – operated from a base in the Black Country manufacturing in make-shift pill production factories in garages and garden sheds, using industrial pill presses and active ingredients imported from China.
It is estimated more than £4million worth of drugs were sold to customers on the dark web, primarily in the USA, using Bitcoin to receive payment.
Packages of tablets were intercepted both in the UK and US. The packages were found to contain counterfeit Xanax and had return addresses related to the defendants – one intercepted parcel had the fingerprints of Brian Pitts on packaging on the inside.
Pitts, 30, of Bilston, who co-ordinated the operation, including counterfeit versions of anti-anxiety pill Xanax, was today jailed for eight years.
Known online as Milkman, he pleaded guilty at a previous hearing to conspiracy to supply Class C controlled drugs; breaching a trademark for a medication, exporting class C controlled drugs; and laundering the proceeds of crime.
Pitts was sentenced along with nine other defendants at Wolverhampton Crown Court.
The wider group included Mark Bailey and Deborah Bellingham, whose addresses in Wolverhampton and Tipton were used as manufacturing sites.
The rest of the group – Kyle Smith, Scott Tonkinson, Anthony Pitts, Jordan Pitts and Bladen Roper – assisted with the running of the business.
Phone content showed accounts used by Brian Pitts, Harlow and Lloyd had control of the Dark Web marketplaces and were linked to Bitcoin and other crypto assets used to buy counterfeit Xanax.
Brian Pitts, Harlow and Lloyd were all arrested when they returned from Thailand in August 2019 with designer clothes and Rolex watches in their luggage.
Pitts and father-in-law Lee Lloyd were the main players, co-ordinating the production and sales of counterfeit tablets online from a villa in Thailand.
Lloyd’s partner Katie Harlow was also involved in laundering the criminal profits and was sentenced to two years and one month imprisonment.
Pitts was also issued with a Serious Crime Prevention Order by the court which will stop him from getting equipment and substances to make pills and allow law enforcement to more readily monitor his activity with financial accounts and on the internet.
Jonathan Kelleher from the Crown Prosecution Service said: “This was a case of fake medicines being produced on an industrial scale, with significant potential harm to the public.
“These drugs should only be prescribed by a doctor and anyone buying them on the Dark Web, produced in a back-garden shed, has no clue what they are taking.
“Brian Pitts and his associates were not concerned with these dangers and only saw a money-making opportunity.
“The CPS worked closely with the West Midlands Regional Organised Crime Unit, including experts in cyber-crime given that much of this offending took place online, to prosecute these organised criminals and protect the public from this harmful trade.”