We infiltrate secret sites selling deadly ecstasy
TEDDY bear-shaped ecstasy tablets costing just £1.38 each are being smuggled into the UK.
They are thought to be the same brand which put three schoolgirls in hospital last weekend. EXCLUSIVE PATRICK WILLIAMS last year – many to UK buyers. His feedback page is littered with positive comments from British buyers.
One wrote in April: “Best stealth ever, the highest quality of pills and only 8 working days to UK!! This is my 2nd order and I will definitely be back.”
A staggering 17,635 ecstasy batches are in stock on the illegal cyber-store, which also sells guns and fake documents, and hires out hitmen.
Gang insiders in Manchester say the internet is making it easy to smuggle powerful drugs into the UK. One told the Daily Star Sunday how Manchester, Liverpool and north Wales are being flooded with cheap ecstasy.
He said: “We used to go out to Holland and bring them in ourselves on budget flights or on the ferry.
“But there’s no longer any need to take that risk when you can set up a PO box address and have them posted.
“If they get intercepted by Customs, which does happen, then no one is getting nicked for it as you just don’t put your own name and address down.
“Depending on the quality of the pill, if you buy in 100s you’re looking at anything from £1 to £1.50 a tablet.
“But if you buy in 500s or even 1,000s you’re picking up the little fellas for around 50p a go. It’s a steal.
“Then you knock them out at a fiver a pop or three for a tenner and you’re raking it in.”
He went on: “There are literally thousands of different brands designed to appeal to young people.
“There is only one reason that pills are pressed to look like teddy bears and kids’ sweets – it’s because the manufacturers want kids to take them.
“The more teenagers I sell to, the more I’ll order in – it’s simple supply and demand.”
The site, which we are not naming to stop people using it, is the go-to market for illegal drugs, guns, luxury services and fraudulent credit cards using stolen numbers.
It is administered in Russia and has a Russian computer server.
Experts claim it has links to the country’s mafia and has so far proved impossible to shut down.
According to the 2016 European Drug Report, ecstasy has surged in popularity in Britain among those aged between 15 and 34 in the past three years.
Recent figures show a fivefold increase in the number of deaths since 2010, when there were eight compared with 50 in 2014.